Minecraft Mines a Million on Xbox Live

[Andy Chalk]

Minecraft Mines a Million on Xbox Live

It looks like Minecraft is just as popular on Xbox Live as it is on the PC.

That sure didn't take long. It's not exactly unexpected, but Microsoft announced today that just five days after its release, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has sold more than one million units on Xbox Live Arcade. Xbox 360 owners have already sunk more than 5.2 million total online hours in the game, including 2.4 million hours spread across four million multiplayer sessions. At 1600 Microsoft points per copy, that translates into roughly $20 million in sales, not bad at all for five days.

Minecraft was the final game released as part of the four-week-long "Arcade Next [http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/promotions/arcade-next]" promotion, which also included Trials Evolution, Bloodforge and Fable Heroes. Microsoft had previously revealed that the 360 edition of Minecraft also had the highest single-day sales total of any XBLA game, beating out Trials Evolution.

"Uhhhh, Microsoft just sent out a press release saying Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has sold a million copies in five days," Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson wrote on Twitter [https://twitter.com/#!/notch]. "Wow." He also noted that despite the wild success of the game across multiple platforms, he is still "not quite Iron Man rich," but is presumably working on it.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/170322/XBLAs_recordbreaking_Minecraft_sells_1M_copies_in_5_days.php]


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[gyro2death]

Glad to see this going so well for him. Creativity is very undervalued in the AAA industry and successful indie devs are going to be the only thing that might convince them to try it again.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I for one await our benevolent robot pixelated overlords.

So, do we name the country "Notchtopia", or something like "Minecraftburg"?

 

[Coldster]

I'm glad to see Minecraft continue to be very successful. Its also nice to see more evidence against all Xbox gamers being a bunch of swearing, immature 12 year old children who only play Call of Duty. We need more amazing things like this to happen in the games industry.

 

[antipunt]

So.....much...money...

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Good to see the game continuing to be very successful, although this doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[stormshot]

we all knew that it would hit a million but I still found it interesting it took 5 days.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Splitscreen co-op made this a no-brainer for me to purchase. The kids love it.

 

[Doclector]

Minecrack has took over my life in a matter of days. There has also been much hilarity over xbox live such as a hole being blown in my house twice by a friend fighting creepers near it, me running around screaming about spiders, and my subsequent insistence on massive amounts of security including a fortress with three walls and counting. All with overhang.

Good to see Notch doing well. Especially as I look a lot like him, just...uglier.

 

[Jaebird]

For the longest time, I never once considered picking up Minecraft when it was still in beta. I have tooled around with the free, browser-based version, and thought nothing of it. That is, until I played the demo on the Xbox that it actually got me hooked. Now, I'm hollowing out caverns to build my little keep with cobblestone.

And, admittedly, I'm playing on the peaceful setting, because I couldn't stand being interrupted by creepers and skeletons.

 

[kouriichi]

Told friends to get it on PC for mods, texture packs and because i already own it. "No, minecraft looks ugly, i dont think i could ever play a game this stupid".

Hits Xbox live, "OMG DUDE YOUVE GOTTA GET THIS GAME IZ AWEZOME!"

Im happy the game is so big though. Ive been with minecraft since.... Forever? Ive built grand structure and full cities, died on hardcore servers and even been to the moon! (that was a pretty cool mod) Im glad my friends will now get to have some of those experiences. One day, my children might even enjoy it.

 

[octafish]

I find it encouraging that people are embracing Minecraft on the Xbox despite it being a somewhat neutered experience.

Indeed as people are discovering Minecraft is better with friends. I'm a little saddened that the server I spent most of my time on was shut down by the admin, but he did send all the participants a zip file of the world, so I can finish my undersea railway.

I do hope Mojang port Minecraft over to the next gen consoles so that Xboxers can get a sense of the scale Minecraft is capable of, I can't imagine being constrained to such a tiny area.

 

[=y]

Go Notch! Get all the money!

Oh and I want to know how Fortress Craft is doing in comparison.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Told friends to get it on PC for mods, texture packs and because i already own it. "No, minecraft looks ugly, i dont think i could ever play a game this stupid".

Hits Xbox live, "OMG DUDE YOUVE GOTTA GET THIS GAME IZ AWEZOME!"

The exact same happened to me.

The only friends I talk to about games are the ones who play PC, with one exception, nd he's looking into investing in a Mid-High end PC.

Concerning Meinkraft on Xbox hitting one million? Saw that one coming.

Captcha: DEATH KEY

 

[direkiller]

Go Notch! Get all the money!

Oh and I want to know how Fortress Craft is doing in comparison.

google seems to be telling me about 750k copys to 1million

so Mine craft is close to even or ahead at this point

 

[valkeminator]

I feel like booting Minecraft again...
Hmm...

On the topic though, I am happy that more people get to play Minecraft.
Not only its educational, inspiring, awesome and fun... but hopefully this increases people's taste and demand for a change from uninspiring, gritty grey shooters.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Glad to see this going so well for him. Creativity is very undervalued in the AAA industry and successful indie devs are going to be the only thing that might convince them to try it again.

Well I wouldn't say that Minecraft was a uniquely creative idea considering it is heavily based off of Infiniminer. Minecraft's success comes mainly from all of the people modding it while it was in it's alpha AND beta stages. That was probably one of the more synergistic video games made, it was players of the game and the creators bouncing ideas back and forth on how the game should play. There was even the story of the Better Than Wolves mod.

In the end, Notch's end additions of adventure mode was next to nothing compared what had come before it. The community loves the hell out of that game because they've had the closest and largest input into a video game that's ever been. It sold this well on XBLA due to MS bending its own rules in order to sell more units.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

Glad to see it do well, because it's a damn fine port over to the Xbox. Played it for a while and while a few things are missing and the use of the controllers is odd, It's still very very fun. The 4 player local co-op is also brilliant, a lot of fun.

Well deserved.

 

[unyielding power]

I am glad I got minecraft its a great game im trying to get some of my friends to buy it