Refunds Issued to Minecraft XBLA Players with SDTVs

by David Sanchez on May 21, 2012 @ 3:32 pm

It was previously revealed that the XBLA version of Minecraft would not support split-screen multiplayer. Even though plenty of people knew about this thanks to the good ol’ internet, it would be impossible for everyone to be aware because Microsoft never made it clear on the game’s Xbox Live Arcade page.

That’s all been fixed, though, and the Minecraft listing now sports a nice little disclaimer that reads, “To experience split-screen functionality a high-definition television is required.”

Obviously, there are a few gamers out there with SDTVs that weren’t exactly aware of the HD barrier that stood in front of them and Minecraft‘s wonderful multiplayer gameplay. These folks feel kind of gypped, so Microsoft has promised to refund gamers who were unaware of the requirements to play Minecraft through its support page.

Now, we can make jokes about how it’s weird that people are playing an HD system on an SDTV, but the fact of the matter is that Microsoft should have included the prerequisite on the Minecraft page right from the get-go. Also, in today’s world where paying the bills and eating are more important than a fancy TV, I don’t think anyone is any position to expect the entire population to own an HDTV, even if they do have an Xbox 360.

Follow this author on .

Read more: Microsoft Nixes Next Xbox “Always” On, Watch_Dogs Dated for November 19 / 22, Minecraft Retail Edition Pushed Back to June, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Achievements Surface, XBL Game Sale Day #7: Fighting

Comments
hush404 says:

The real question I want answered is, why the hell can't a game like mine craft do split screen on an SDTV? It can't be a graphical issue.

May 21, 2012, 11:47 pm
Abe Froeman says:

It might be. I remember when Dead Rising first came out I didn't have an HDTV yet and I could hardly read any on screen text. It was a pretty big issue at the time.

May 21, 2012, 11:58 pm
slicer4ever says:

While abe is right that it's very difficult to read things, it's defiantly not impossible to do split-screen on SDTV, but even playing on split screen with 720p, it is still hard to read/see things for some reason.

May 22, 2012, 12:10 am
hush404 says:

But.. it's Minecraft. The game that's built out of HUGE pixelated blocks. I really don't see how that would be messed up with splitscreen on a SDTV.

May 22, 2012, 3:46 am
Trigun says:

It's a developer issue. Incompetence for not optimizing everything for every available display mode and not considering that a large amount of people still use non HDTVs.

You can't just ignore it.

Many games have been like this and it's rather unexcuseable and makes a lot of games unplayable even on a high quality CRT with component.

Why is it so god damn hard to devote a few extra resources to optimizing for 480i/p? (where you should get better performance too. So if a game has slowdown in 720p how can the same thing occur at 3X less the pixel resolution?) (720p =921,600 Pixels. 480p/i= generally around 307,200 pixels for 4:3)Especially for the PS3 considering it comes packaged with COMPOSITE cables.
May 22, 2012, 5:03 am
Robby says:

If you're able to drop money on video games, especially when most of them are $60, I don't see how you can not have a HD tv by now especially when they are so cheap, not to mention the fact that you will get to fully enjoy the games you play.

May 23, 2012, 1:02 am
you say:

Login with your username and password below. New User?