The open-world video game “Minecraft” has arrived on the Samsung Gear VR on April 27 and as such, the game is now playable to the VR-compatible smartphones of the Korean tech giant including the Galaxy S7, the Galaxy S7 Edge, the Galaxy Note 5, the Galaxy S6 Edge+, the Galaxy S6, and the Galaxy S6 Edge.
“Minecraft” can be played on the Samsung smartphones simply by slotting the handsets into the Samsung Gear VR headset and it would display one whole Minecraft world to each of the gamer’s eyes, notes the website of the Swedish game developer Mojang.
It was previously reported that the VR edition of “Minecraft” would come out first on the Oculus Rift but it seems that the Samsung Gear VR has beaten it to the draw.
However, to make things easier and simpler for gamers, Mojang also released a separate version on the Oculus Store just for use with the Samsung Gear VR. It has all the features of Pocket Edition of “Minecraft” and it costs the same and has cross-platform play with regular Pocket and Windows 10 editions.
Playable on Samsung smartphones and the PC
It can be noted that the Samsung Gear VR edition of “Minecraft” can only be played on Samsung smartphones and devices that were released last year and this year because gadgets older than 2015 can no longer support the game.
However, the VR mode of the game can be played without any cable tethering to a PC.
It was during the Games Development Conference (GDC) 2016 held in San Francisco, California last month when Microsoft unveiled its plans to release “Minecraft” for Gear VR.
On April 27, it was actually Oculus who made the announcement that the game is now available on Samsung’s virtual reality headset.
The game is officially called “Minecraft: Gear VR Edition” and it shall be supporting the same features as the Pocket Edition including its creative, survival and multiplayer modes, as well as the character skins that gamers have been familiar with, cites Engadget.
The “Minecraft: Gear VR Edition” will also enable gamers to choose between a first-person or theater view depending on how hardcore the gamer feels like when he starts building and exploring in VR.
For those who already have their Samsung Gear VR, “Minecraft” can be acquired from the Oculus Store for $7.
Taking the game to new heights
After buying the open-world video game “Minecraft” from its Swedish developer Mojang back in 2014 for a whopping $2.5 billion, Microsoft is now all set to take its acquisition to new and better heights.
Drawing on the feature of “Minecraft” as a popular tool to teach children about countless subjects including art, geography, and computer science, the Redmondian company has developed a tweaked version of the game which it called as “MinecraftEdu” specifically meant for educators and teachers.
But Microsoft did not stop there as it launched early this year a new version of the game called “Minecraft: Education Edition” which include features that are not found in the vanilla version of “Minecraft” including enhanced maps with a coordinate system to help teachers and students navigate together, digital portfolios, and simple world importing and exporting.
The new edition of the game will be available initially as a free trial beginning this summer, before individual and group pricing models are introduced for academic institutions who may want to have long-term access.
Most of the educators are still using “MinecraftEdu” and in order to encourage their eventual shift to “Minecraft: Education Edition,” Microsoft will be offering them 12 months of free access to the new game.
The American tech company explained that it has been working with the game creator TeacherGaming regarding new tools, including a second screen experience for teachers.
Microsoft has been very supportive of educators through its Windows. Thus, it was just fitting for the company to embrace and ultimately sell “Minecraft” as a platform for teachers.
If “Minecraft” continues to be successful in schools as Microsoft hope or projects it to be, it could actually rival the revenue stream of its Office software suit.