Minecraft Pistons Trailer

[Updated: Title Update 14 is now out for Xbox 360, hits PS3 tomorrow.]

Minecraft mania shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. With over a hundred-million registered users, a whopping 14 million PC sales and a level of cultural influence usually reserved for brawny space shooters, Notch's block building empire just keeps on getting bigger.

The same might actually be said of the game's ever-expanding bag of tricks, with every new update bringing with it a fresh perspective on the subterranean title. Recent PC patches have included everything from Twitch support to mini-game arenas, though today's news concerns the title's home console cousins.

Minecraft 'Title Update 14' (a.k.a. Patch 1.04) introduces a flurry of tweaks and additions for the game's Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ports. Highlights include the ability to control pesky pigs with a carrot on a stick, fresh mobs of zombie villagers and a whole host of new languages to choose from.

Cool new items include a tripwire hook (sure to result in some interesting trap designs), an invisibility potion (perfect for fans of witchcraft and wizardry), and a new night vision tonic that makes it possible see during the ever dreaded night time. Additional quirks include poisonous potatoes, a golden carrot and an enchanted book.

Check out a list of all the new additions below:

  • Emerald
  • Emerald Ore
  • Block of Emerald
  • Ender Chest
  • Tripwire Hook
  • Enchanted Golden Apple
  • Anvil
  • Flower Pot
  • Cobblestone Walls
  • Mossy Cobblestone Walls
  • Wither Painting
  • Potato
  • Baked Potato
  • Poisonous Potato
  • Carrot
  • Golden Carrot
  • Carrot on a Stick
  • Pumpkin Pie
  • Night Vision Potion
  • Invisibility Potion
  • Nether Quartz
  • Nether Quartz Ore
  • Block of Quartz
  • Quartz Slab
  • Quartz Stair
  • Chiseled Quartz Block
  • Pillar Quartz Block
  • Enchanted Book
  • Carpet
Minecraft Horse Update

Aside from all of those new items, Update 14 for Minecraft's console ports also added a few environmental and mob tweaks to deepen the game a little more. Below is the list for those changes:

  • Added new recipes for Smooth Sandstone and Chiseled Sandstone.
  • Added new Mobs: Zombie Villagers.
  • Added new terrain generation features - Desert Temples, Desert Villages, and Jungle Temples.
  • Added Trading with villagers.
  • Added Anvil interface.
  • Added sideways log placement.
  • Changed placement of half blocks and other blocks on half blocks.
  • Changed placement of upside down stairs and slabs.
  • Wooden Buttons and Wooden Pressure Plates can be activated with Arrows.
  • Can dye leather armor.
  • Can dye wolf collars.
  • Can control riding a pig with a Carrot on a Stick.
  • Added different villager professions.
  • Villagers spawned from a spawn egg will have a random profession.
  • Furnaces can use wooden tools as a fuel.
  • Ice and Glass panes can be collected with silk touch enchanted tools.
  • Nether mobs can spawn in the Overworld from Portals.
  • Creepers and Spiders are aggressive towards the last player that hit them.
  • Mobs in Creative mode become neutral again after a short period.
  • Remove knockback when drowning.
  • Doors being broken by zombies show damage.
  • Ice melts in the Nether.
  • Cauldrons fill up when out in the rain.
  • Pistons take twice as long to update.
  • Pig drops Saddle when killed (if has one).
  • Sky color in The End changed.
  • String can be placed (for Tripwires).
  • Rain drips through leaves.
  • Levers can be placed on the bottom of blocks.
  • TNT does variable damage depending on difficulty setting.
  • Book recipe changed.
  • Boats break Lily Pads, instead of Lily Pads breaking Boats.
  • Pigs drop more Porkchops.
  • Slimes spawn less in Superflat worlds.
  • Creeper damage variable based on difficulty setting, more knockback.
  • Fixed Endermen not opening their jaws.
  • Added new Host Options for flying, invisibility and invulnerability for remote players.
  • Added teleporting of players (using the player menu in-game).
  • Furnace will return an empty bucket when fuelled by a bucket of lava.
  • Updated Bonus Chest content with more items.
  • Added new tutorials to the Tutorial World for new items and features.
  • Updated the positions of the Music Disc Chests in the Tutorial World.
  • Added new languages - Danish, Finnish, Latin American Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish and Turkish
  • Various network issue fixes.
Minecraft Publishing Deal

This latest update certainly includes some fun features, though the game's console-bound community still lags someway behind its PC-playing friends. Granted, both console iterations launched much later than their computer-based counterpart — though you’d still expect Mojang and 4J Studios to have attempted to bridge that gap more significantly.

Will Minecraft for home consoles continue to trail behind the PC version for the foreseeable future? Which elements of the PC release deserve a console debut? What do you make of these latest additions and how can Mojang help to sustain Minecraft's success? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to keep up with all of the latest Minecraft news, right here on Game Rant.

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Minecraft Title Update 14 is expected to release sometime in the following week. The revision applies to both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 copies of the game.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @GamingGoo.

Source: Minecraft Forum, Mojang