As you’re sure to already know, Mojang Specification’s Minecraft has effectively taken the world by storm. With little to no promotion, the game has already sold over 1 million units with no publisher and just a single developer. Well, now that the game has secured its popularity the godfather of the popular indie title, Notch, is wondering where to take it next.

Newcomers to the game may find things a bit slow at first as other that building things, there isn’t much to do. Many attribute this simple gamplay to the title’s success but those not versed in the game may be turned off. Luckily, Notch has went on record as saing he’s considering adding achievements to the game to fill the none linear void. Below he comments:

“I’ve had the idea to make achievements kind of like the in-game questing. So you’d be able to see the first achievement in a tree of achievements, and you have to unlock the top ones first before you can unlock the ones further down.”

Sounds like a pretty good idea nad certainly something that will have folks playing even more than before. What do you think? Would you like achievements in Minecraft?

via vg247

While the highly anticipated Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was only recently announced, its been kept under wraps pretty good since its development. The reason I say this is because Capcom has been working on the game for almost 2 years now, actually starting production during the summer of 2008.

We know this because the creators of the game were recently asked if the reason they are releasing it was due to Marvel vs. Capcom 2‘s success as a downloadable title. To make a long story short they responded no, we started it long before that.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will be released sometime in Spring of next year.

via vg247

With game’s like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and the Left 4 Dead, Valve is no stranger to hit titles. What they are a stranger to, however is the PS3. While the games have gone on to sell like hot cakes, Valve has yet to give the PS3 any love. Why? Well, they have yet to establish a dedicated PS3 development team considering the games are harder to port than you would think. Sure, Orange Box was ported but it was laden with bugs and other things.

Luckily, Valve has said today that while there has been little PS3 development in the past, they are sure they will develop for the console in the future. But, before they do that they are going to have to make sure they can do it right because they don’t want an Orange Box repeat.

via destructoid

Killzone 2 only just hit store shelves earlier this year and just now reports are coming to light that says Killzone 3 is already in development.

News comes to us from the Official Playstation Magazine who says Killzone 3 is to be one of Guerilla Games‘ secret projects for 2010 and is under heavy development over at the studio.

Just how much stock should you put into this report? Well, the Official Playstation Magazine is pretty credible considering the obvious but Killzone 2 took 4 years to get onto store shelves so I think it’s safe to say we will be seeing a delay, or two.

via destructoid

Usually, Capcom develops games on console platforms, and later ports them to the PC months later. This is one of the attributing factors of the recent downfall of PC gaming.

In an interview with VG247, Capcom’s Christian Svensson revealed that there are a few development teams teams that are working on a few “PC-lead” projects. This means that the games’ development is focused around the PC. Of course, the games will be be ported over to consoles in time.

Svensson did not reveal any information about the projects, but it’s good to know that there are at least a few companies out there who still want to keep PC gaming alive.

Considering some of Valve’s flagship titles such as Left 4 Dead never made their way onto the Playstation 3 would lead one to think that Valve had no intentions of ever bringing titles to the platform. However, this is not the case.

In a recent interview with Valve’s Doug Lombardi, done by Joystiq, he said that despite the titles not coming to the PS3, the company still wants to develop for the platform. What’s blocking the way? Well, a group of “decent PS3 coders”, of course.

So, once Valve secures a team of what they are calling “talented PS3 guys” they will again develop for the PS3 but until then, not a chance.

It seems that Duke Nukem is taking Forever is getting closer and closer to completetion. George Broussard, a member of the development team over at 3D Realms, has recently revealed via Twitter that the team has surpassed a milestone this week:

Closing out a milestone this week. 71 more tasks to do and we started with probably 800-900. Been a good push. Next one starts Monday.

71 more to go, huh? Well let’s see, the game was announced in April of 1997 which means it has been in development for about 12 years now. If we go by what Mr. Bourssard is saying by starting off with 800-900 tasks, we can calculate that the team has completed about 70 tasks per year. So, if they keep it up, we might actually be seeing Duke Nukem Forever hit shelves sometime within the next 2 years. Then again, probably not.

A new job recruitment page recently went live on Konami’s website seeking developers for, what else, a continuation of the Metal Gear series.

According to Joystiq, that mess of Japanese characters displayed on the recruitment page states that Konami is looking for developers for console and mobile Metal Gear titles.

Since Metal Gear Touch is on it’s way, it’s safe to assume that this listing will help in the development of more games like that. But what about the console? Metal Gear Solid 5 anyone? Hell, maybe we’ll see a Metal Gear Wii title.

The Savannah Economic Development Authority has recently announced that they will offer a years worth of free rent to up-and-comping game developers in an under construction office building along the Savannah River.

This is a breath of fresh air given the current climate of the economy. The SEDA is really looking to help a start-up game developer get through these tough times and potentially climb to the top.

“Having seen one company close after another, I know there are a lot of amazingly talented developers out there who would like to continue developing games. These are my friends in many cases, and I started to think of possible things that I could do to help.” says Savannah game designer Brenda Brathwaite, the brains behind this operation.

Read more about it here.

Read (Joystiq)

Microsoft recently announced plans to restructure the fabled Rare due to the current economical climate. But why restructure such a great development studio?

Well, Microsoft says:

“As the entire industry struggles to address the increasing scale and cost of development, we too have felt a need to restructure our current approach so we can speed development and better manage the scale required to create high quality games,” commented Mark Betteridge, studio manager.

It’s also noted that this could possible result in a few Rare employees to pack their bags even though the studio apparently has 4 unannounced titles in the works. This is really too bad, I remember falling in love with Rare ever since the Donkey Kong titles for SNES and the Banjo-Kazooie series for N64.
Read (GamesIndustry.Biz)