Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition

Master Chief, Microsoft's biggest gaming icon, is now available in Minecraft on Nintendo Switch.

The Minecon Earth show happened yesterday and a handful of Minecraft announcements were made. The biggest was the reveal of Update Aquatic, an entire overhaul to oceans coming spring 2018, and it has dolphins - dolphins that can lead you to treasure, which is Flippering marvellous.

Halo will finally land on a Nintendo platform - in the shape of the Microsoft franchise's Minecraft mash-up pack.

A 3DS edition of Minecraft was just announced, and then revealed to be launching later today on the eShop.

UPDATE 21st AUGUST 12PM BST: The Minecraft Xbox One S bundle will be exclusive to retailers Argos and Sainsbury's in the UK, and be priced £350, Argos has confirmed.

Minecraft convention MineCon won't be held in a publicly attended physical location this year. Instead, it will be beamed into our hearts and minds via the magic of livestreaming.

Microsoft recently released a big new update for Minecraft that marked the beginning of cross-platform play, and alongside the update updated its safety features for playing the game online.

Minecraft's various console versions just got a big new update, adding in new animals, structures, blocks, villagers, items and Achievements/Trophies.

Going by the latest post on Minecraft's official blog, it sounds like the game's last major update on consoles before the game-changing Better Together Update lands later this summer. That's the update which will unify Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, mobile, VR and Windows 10 editions of the game into a single entity where everyone can play together. It's also the update which PlayStation has opted out of.

As expected, however, "platforms which won't support the Better Together Update will continue getting updates even after it lands," Minecraft's Marsh Davies reassured.

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UPDATE: Minecraft's "Better Together" update will launch for Windows 10, iOS, Android, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and VR devices - but not PlayStation.

In what seems like a pretty logical team-up, kid-friendly animation series Adventure Time and perennial sandbox fave Minecraft are teaming up.

Minecraft's various console versions are getting Glide, a new free mini-game.

Do you remember your first adventures in Minecraft? I do. I was mostly confused. For much of its history, Minecraft hasn't done much to help you understand how to play it, how to craft things, what these crafted things do, and why you'd want them. It doesn't tell you about the alternate dimensions that you can visit, or about how you get to them. It doesn't tell you why should should play or what you're aiming for.

Minecraft continues to be an astonishing success - the sandbox game king has now sold more than 121m copies across all platforms.

A new Fallout-themed pack is heading to Minecraft's console versions, bringing fan favourites from the post-apocalyptic universe to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Vita and Wii U editions of the game. I think that's pretty much all of them.

What happens when you go up against Minecraft? What happens when you dare suggest gaming's golden child not belong in the classroom, then call it "a gimmick", then say "we need to drain the swamp of gimmicks"? It does not involve being sent nice flowers I'll tell you that.

Wings are finally coming to Minecraft: Console Editions in December.

Horror author Max Brooks is writing an official Minecraft novel.

Minecraft's next console update will get bears, beets and... banners.

In the words of PJ and Duncan, let's get ready to tumble, let's get ready to tumble, let's get, let's get ready ready, let's get ready to tumble.

The Minecraft movie officially has a release date... in 2019.

24th May to be exact. That's straight from the horse's mouth of Minecraft developer Mojang.

"Yes, that might seem like a long time away, but it just so happens to be the right amount of time to make it completely awesome," said Mojang COO Vu Bui. "And we all want an awesome Minecraft movie, right?"

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Minecraft's new Battle Mode launches today on all console versions of the game, although the price for more maps is steeper than some had expected.

It is, simply, a phenomenon: Minecraft has now sold more than 100m copies worldwide across PC, console and mobile platforms.

The game is owned in every country and territory on the planet - even Antarctica (it's probably David Attenborough) - and in 2016 more than 53,000 copies have been bought every day.

Creator Mojang released an infographic showcasing some statistics. In Europe, for example, the mobile version of Minecraft is most popular but only by the smallest of margins. The mobile version accounts for 36 per cent of sales whereas the console versions account for 35 per cent. The longer-serving PC version accounts for 29 per cent.

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Minecraft developer Mojang is cracking down on the sorts of creations people erect in its procedurally-generated sandbox. The gist is that people can still make whatever they want, unless it's specifically to promote an unrelated product. That's now against the user guidelines.

Minecraft's console versions are getting a new mode next month, and a new way for Microsoft to monetise the game.

Lego's top-selling Minecraft range will get a big new addition in June with the arrival of an enormous £169.99 set named The Village.

Mojang and 4J Studios are set to launch a huge new update to Minecraft's various console versions.

Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3/Vita and PS4 editions of the sandbox creation sim will get a raft of new features, animals, blocks and biomes.

The update was submitted to Microsoft and Sony for certification earlier this week and is due to go live shortly.

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UPDATE 17/11/15 10.45am: PEGI has quietly removed its listing for the unannounced Minecraft: Wii U Edition.

Sandbox phenomenon Minecraft will soon add a flying cape, allowing players to soar around their worlds.

Northern Ireland's government, in an attempt to simultaneously seem hip and educational, has recreated its region in Minecraft.

Microsoft reported its results for the fourth quarter of its 2015 financial year, and while the company made a gargantuan loss, Xbox and the division it sits in made a tidy profit.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator and star Rob McElhenney will be directing the Minecraft movie, Mojang has announced.

Mojang has announced Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition, which will launch in beta form alongside Microsoft's new operating system on 29th July.

It will be free to download if you already own Minecraft on PC, or $10 (about £6.40) if you don't.

This edition is separate to the existing PC build and will offer online and local multiplayer with anyone playing on Minecraft: Pocket Edition (that's the version available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone).

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All of Minecraft's console version will receive a new update tomorrow.

As detailed on developer Mojang's official blog, this new version version 1.17/TU25/CU14 will add new objects like stained glass, trapdoors, inverted daylight sensors, books and quills.

Other additions include new blocks such as oak, spruce, birch and "jungle wood".

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Minecraft maker Mojang has launched three new skin packs for Xbox One to celebrate its third birthday on Microsoft's range of systems.

Minecraft now includes a range of default female avatar options on PlayStation 3, 4, Vita, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Turkey's Family and Social Policies Ministry is seeking a ban on Minecraft.

MineCon, the Minecraft convention, is set for a 4th-5th July showing at the ExCeL London Exhibition and Conference Centre, Mojang has announced.

Minecraft's Xbox One and Xbox 360 editions will be getting The Simpsons-based skins in an all new pack coming in late February.

4J Studios, developer of the console version of Minecraft, has issued a new update for the Xbox Edition of the game that adds horses to the game.

Mojang and its new owner Microsoft have launched Minecraft: Pocket Edition for Windows Phone devices.

The handheld version costs £4.99 in the UK.

Mojang first announced a Windows Phone version of its smash-hit sandbox game back in October - after Microsoft's $2.5bn purchase of both the game and studio.

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Beano comic star Dennis the Menace now has his own Minecraft mod.

Microsoft has released the first of several new Star Wars skin packs, which will only launch for Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

55 player skins are included in the Star Wars Classic Skin Pack DLC, including Luke, Leia, Han and Chewbacca.

Dozens of lesser known characters also make an appearance, from Greedo to Governer Tarkin via Bib Fortuna and Admiral Ackbar (but no Wedge?!).

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Warner Bros. is in talks with Night at the Museum director and producer Shawn Levy to helm its upcoming Minecraft movie, Deadline has reported.

Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition will finally be available to download from next Wednesday, 15th October, developer 4J Studios has announced.

That date applies to European Vita owners only, however. There's no word yet on when the game will be released in North America.

The Vita edition will be a Cross-Buy game for anyone who has already bought Minecraft on PlayStation 3. (The PS4 version is a separate entity, although you can upgrade to it from PS3/Vita at reduced cost.)

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Don't blink - Minecraft's new Doctor Who-themed pack is now available to download on Xbox 360, priced £1.99.

A new trailer for the DLC confirms that the pack is also coming to Xbox One, although the content is not yet live on the console's store.

Included in the download are skins for Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor, current companion Clara, plus previous Tardis team Amy, Rory and Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith.

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Minecraft: Xbox One Edition is getting a disc release on 18th November, where it will retail for $19.99 (about £13).

Now Xbox maker Microsoft owns the phenomenally successful block-placing sandbox Minecraft, what will happen to the game on PlayStation platforms?

Microsoft has bought Mojang and Minecraft in a deal worth an incredible $2.5bn, it's announced.

UPDATE 10/9/14 9.55am: Minecraft creator Markkus "Notch" Persson instigated talks with Microsoft to sell developer Mojang, a new source has claimed, and will leave the company for good when the deal is complete.

Waiting until midnight for your copy of Destiny to unlock? One intrepid fan is already exploring the game's Tower location - albeit in Minecraft.

Saddle up those pigs and get ready to punch some trees, Minecraft is now available to download on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Minecraft is now available to download on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, each of which offer an expanded draw distance compared to their last-gen counterparts.

Minecraft's Xbox 360 Edition will soon play host to a range of Doctor Who characters.

A visually-accurate version of Great Britain's geology has been recreated within Minecraft.

Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition may miss its August release window after Sony spotted technical issues during a test.

Developer 4J Studios relayed the bad news last night via Twitter, and told fans that another wait was now in store.

"Sony found some issues we have to fix in their final test of #MinecraftPS4 :(," 4J wrote. "We're fixing, but we need to go through the process again."

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Lego's new range of officially-licensed Minecraft sets have been spotted online.

Minecraft's console editions for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have now sold more copies than the game's original PC and Mac version.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson has hit back at fans who branded developer Mojang "literally worse than EA" after the studio's recent update to its Minecraft end-user agreement.

Minecraft developer Mojang has revealed extensive details on the game's upcoming PlayStation 4, Vita and Xbox One editions, which will all be available to download this August.

Minecraft's PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions will show off more of your world on screen than their PS3 and Xbox 360 counterparts.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson talked about how he has a 10-year plan for his staff if he doesn't come up with an idea for a successor to the all-conquering Minecraft.

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions of Minecraft won't feature the "infinite" world size of the game's PC version.

UPDATE 25/4/14 08.10am: Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now confirmed that game saves from Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition will be transferrable to the upcoming Xbox One version.

UPDATE 13.15PM: Mojang has now confirmed the physical version of Minecraft: PS3 Edition and teased the game's box art for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4.

More than 1.5 million copies of the PS3 Edition have been downloaded so far, the EU PlayStation blog reports.

We've known that the game will come to both PS4 and PS Vita for some time, but the existence of box art suggests that both of these platforms will see the game as a physical release, too.

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Last night's North American episode of The Simpsons featured a new opening credits sequence inspired by Minecraft.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft has now sold an astonishing 12m copies.

Microsoft announced the new milestone today, along with word of another new mod pack for the game - the Candy Texture Pack, due to launch 18th April.

"I remember when we started talking about sales numbers that we would be super happy to sell 1m copies," Mojang's Daniel Kaplan said. "That would have put us on par with BF 1943 and Castle Crashers, which both are awesome games, so that was something to aim for.

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Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition's long-awaited new update launches today, developer Mojang has confirmed.

Minecraft maker Mojang raked in over 2 billion Swedish kronor (£197m) in 2013, the company has revealed.

A film version of Minecraft is in development at Warner Bros., a new report has revealed.

The next update for Minecraft's best-selling Xbox 360 version will include some major features from the game's PC build.

Minecraft's console developer 4J Studios posted on Twitter last night confirming the inclusion of NPC trading and anvils in the upcoming Title Update 14, all of which will presumably also filter through to the game's PlayStation 3 port.

It means that you'll soon be able to pester the game's NPC Villagers for items, in return for emeralds - a major block type which will also make its console debut.

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A talented Minecraft fan is re-creating the entire world of Oscar-winning Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away.

Yo ho how ya doing? Ian is heading off on his Christmas holidays tonight, so he's planning to stream stuff on YouTube all day to celebrate, starting with festive-themed Xbox Live indie games at 3pm GMT, sledding into a Minecraft Christmas challenge at 5pm and jingling around in Saints Row 4's new Christmas-themed DLC at 7pm.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition developer 4J Studios is working with Microsoft to allow players to transfer their Xbox 360 save data to the Xbox One edition of the popular block-based building game.

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - the feature length documentary about the paradigm-shifting indie sandbox title - is now viewable, in its entirety, ad-free, on YouTube.

Minecraft console developer 4J Studios has said that it is prioritising work on the game's PlayStation 3 version before launching on any other platform.

UPDATE: Eurogamer's Ian Higton has been exploring the Ordnance Survey map for himself - watch his travels below as he takes in Stonehenge, London, Oxford and mispronounces everything around Eurogamer's home city of Brighton.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition's first mash-up pack is themed around the Mass Effect series and will launch tomorrow.

UPDATE: Yesterday's announcement of Minecraft for PlayStation 4 was not the whole story - Sony has now confirmed that all of its current platforms will see the mega-selling sandbox.

PlayStation 3 and Vita versions are also on the way, PlayStation rep Adam Boyes wrote on Twitter. Xbox 360 Edition developer 4J Studios will once again handle the game's console conversions.

Minecraft is currently only available for Android, iPhone, Mac, PC and Xbox 360. An Xbox One version is also on the way.

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Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition developer 4J Studios has at last confirmed the final list of changes in the game's next title update.

Title update 12 will add a number of recent features from Mojang's main PC version (but not horses - they're due in yet another future patch).

The biggest new addition is the Jungle biome - complete with wild ocelots to tame into Creeper-scaring cats. The biome also includes the jungle tree and ability to grow cocoa.

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Tickets to Minecon 2013, this year's biggest gathering of Minecraft fans, will go on sale tonight, developer Mojang has announced.

The boxed version of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has beaten Nintendo's new release Pikmin 3 to win first place in the UK all-formats chart.

Xbox One pre-orders are trending ahead of Xbox 360 pre-orders, Microsoft has said.

Putt-Putt, the entity behind the chain of miniature golf courses so prevalent that its name has practically become synonymous with the hobby, is threatening to sue Minecraft developer Mojang over user-generated levels that allegedly infringe upon the "Putt-Putt" name.

Traditional MMOs have gone out of fashion lately. It used to be that every gaming brand had exciting untapped MMO potential and every publisher wanted an MMO in its stable, but the gold rush inspired by World of Warcraft yielded little precious metal, and a lot of publishers got burned in the process - especially Electronic Arts with Star Wars: The Old Republic - while the term "MMO" has become taboo when discussing a new breed of games that includes The Division and Destiny, even though in many respects they are both massively multiplayer and online.

UPDATE: Microsoft studios boss Phil Spencer has suggested there is still hope for Minecraft save transfers on Xbox One.

The Xbox 360 version of sandbox smash-hit Minecraft will be released in physical form for the first time on 28th June, Microsoft has announced.

Boxed copies will come with a free 48-hour subscription to Xbox Live Gold, but will otherwise be exactly the same game as their downloadable brothers.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has been a phenomenal success since it launched on Xbox Live Arcade last year. It shifted more than five million copies in eight months - many more than the PC original in the same timeframe, and is to date the best-selling Xbox Live Arcade game ever.

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Good news for PlayStation fans: there's a chance Minecraft could come to Sony consoles.

In 2012, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson earned $101 million (~£64 million).

Maker Mojang is overwhelmed by the success of Minecraft. Remember that Mojang is a just small Swedish developer that was founded by Markus "Notch" Persson when Minecraft exploded. Then learn that Mojang earned a reported $240 million (£152 million) in 2012.

Holy Moly! King's Landing - the main city in George RR Martin's realm of Westeros (A Song of Ice and Fire, AKA A Game of Thrones) - has been recreated in Minecraft.

Varys nice.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 were more popular on Xbox Live in 2012 than Halo 4.

There's a lovely moment very early on in this feature length documentary where footage of the Swedish countryside where Markus "Notch" Perrson grew up segues into the landscape of Minecraft, the bash-and-build indie hit that made his fortune.

It's an obvious edit, but one that hints at an all-important connection between tangible reality and virtual fantasy. In suggesting a source of inspiration for Notch's work, it drags gaming from its realm of ones and zeroes and into a more relatable creative sphere, where the artist draws on their own life and experience to create something universal. Sadly, that brief edit is as close of The Story of Mojang comes to unearthing any great truths about this most modern of phenomena.

That isn't to say it's not a pleasant movie. For fans of Minecraft it contains enough harmless glimpses behind the curtain and enough validation of their passion to justify its existence. It's just not terribly illuminating, and has very little to say that hasn't already been said during Minecraft's meteoric rise. The closest comparison would be the direct-to-DVD promotional films that follow the latest boyband around on tour, offering a veneer of candid insight but mostly serving to tell fans what the singer's favourite colour is.

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Runt of the litter no longer - the Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft sold more copies than the PC edition in 2012.

Remember the flashy-pants Kickstarted Minecraft documentary that followed Notch for a year as he founded Mojang and meteorically shot to fame in 2011? It's done, it's finished and there's a free screening on Xbox Live this weekend.

Those of you who enjoy the moving picture as well as the word on the page may have noticed that our YouTube channel has been more active than usual over the last couple of weeks. That's because we've brought on somebody to update it more frequently! His name is Ian Higton and from now on he will be posting Let's Play videos (gameplay capture with commentary), news snippets, interviews, live streams of new games and other bits and pieces to serve the audience that follows us on YouTube.

Minecraft on Raspberry Pi: the dream has come true. And it will be free.

Every week we bring you an article from our archive, either for you to read again or discover for the first time. This week, with news circling of Microsoft buying Mojang, we bring you a reminder of the power of Minecraft via Keith Stuart's excellent article, first published in November 2012.

Hello Eurogamers, how have you been? We've been pretty busy over on Outside Xbox and, if you'll indulge us, we'd like to show you the best bits from the past seven days.

The Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition Halloween Skin Pack has just launched on Xbox Marketplace, with every penny of its price-tag going to charity.

Imagine being eight years old today. You pack your bag, hop on a bus, act like your crush has cooties and go through lessons on history, English, maths, science, and... Minecraft?

More people are playing Minecraft on Xbox Live Arcade than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 or FIFA 13.

Hello Eurogamer readers, I hope you're enjoying the website you're currently staring at and don't mind Outside Xbox interloping with another weekly update about what we've been up to out in the colonies.

Minecraft's Creative Mode that allows players to remove the game's survival aspects and focus on building has arrived on the Xbox 360 version today as part of its 1.8.2 update.

I'd finished my interview with Tom Cassell, and it had gone fairly well. Although, something did feel like it was missing. "Would you mind if I walked with you for a bit?" I asked. "So I can see it happen?" Tom was enthusiastic - he is about most things. So we took to the floor of the Eurogamer Expo.

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, a documentary by 2 Player Productions - the team behind the Double Fine Adventure video series - is scheduled for a release in "early December," director Paul Owens told Eurogamer.

Outspoken indie success story Markus 'Notch' Persson tweeted to Microsoft that he'd rather not put his phenomenally successful sandbox game Minecraft on Windows 8 than support the closed platform.

The eerie Endermen, nasty silverfish, spooky abandoned mines and the gnawing pangs of hunger are among the features coming to the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft in the upcoming 1.8.2 update. The details come from a trio of new screenshots uploaded to the official Mojang website.

What happens when humans are forced to compete for resources? How does a group of strangers interact when trapped in a confined area? And, with limited knowledge of their fellow competitors' intentions, how long does it take before paranoia kicks in?

Yesterday evening was the European Games Awards, voted for by a record 230,000 European people online.

This year's MineCon Minecraft convention will be held at Disneyland Paris, the game's maker, Mojang, has revealed.

2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann has gone and said something controversial. He's declared that only when games approach photorealistic graphics will they be able to broaden their genre-horizon and properly do nuanced emotion like Brokeback Mountain - rather than the Mission Impossible experiences we get today.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson revealed that his studio Mojang was working on a first-person shooter with an unannounced company, but ended up cancelling the project in its prototype phase.

Evidently this wasn't due to the quality of the game, so much as it was about wanting to remain autonomous. In remarks to Joystiq, Notch said, Mojang "did not want more external dependencies... The success of Minecraft meant we could focus on projects fully owned by us."

This isn't to suggest that Mojang will only work on entirely independent project, and Notch stated that if there are other reasons to collaborate besides making money he would consider it.

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US talk show host/comedian Conan O'Brien has reviewed Notch's indie mega-hit Minecraft on his show, Conan.

The segment is part of the "Clueless Gamer" series as O'Brien freely admits that he doesn't play videogames. His staffer Aaron Bleyaert acts as his guide through the trying early stages of the title.

When told the game was about mining, Conan replied, "So it's like we're in Wales in the 19th century and we're desperately poor? What a fun game for kids!"

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The founder of Uniloc, the Luxembourg company suing Mojang over the Android version of Minecraft, has rejected the accusation that he is a "patent troll" and defended the practice of patenting software after receiving "disgusting" emails.

A company with a reputation for being a software patent troll is suing Minecraft maker Mojang over the Android version of the game.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has now broken the 3 million sales barrier on Xbox Live Arcade.

Creator Markus "Notch" Persson confirmed the new total on Twitter this morning.

How much money has the conversion made? Minecraft on XBLA costs 1600 Microsoft Points (about £13.60). Three million sales therefore equates to a stunning £40.8 million of revenue. And Microsoft will pocket around £12m of this, based on the company's usual 30 per cent rate.

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Minecraft's new 1.7.3 update is now live for the Xbox 360 edition.

The patch fixes numerous bugs and adds several new features, like shears to gather wool from sheep.

A DLC pack containing 40 character skins is expected shortly. Details surrounding its exact release will be announced later today, said publisher 4J Studios on twitter.

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Minecraft and Trials Evolution are receiving free bonus content in honour of Microsoft celebrating its fifth year of the Summer of Arcade promotion.

A dedicated band of Game of Thrones fans have taken to recreating the entire continent of Westeros in Minecraft.

A collection of 40 new character skins is coming to the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft to coincide with the 1.7.3 title update due next week.

Enterprising Minecraft: Xbox 360 gamers have constructed an impressive version of Manchester United home ground Old Trafford.

A patch for Minecraft on Xbox Live Arcade goes live today.

It makes a number of changes to the game, the best-selling ever on Microsoft's digital platform.

Added is an autosave function, an Interface Opacity slider and a co-ordinate display to the in-game map.

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Microsoft exec Phil Spencer has just announced this year's Summer of Xbox Live Arcade line-up on G4TV.

Minecraft has now surpassed nine million sales across all versions of the game.

Minecraft's PC, Android, iOS and Xbox Live Arcade editions have collectively sold 9.2 million copies, Mojang's business developer Daniel Kaplan wrote on Twitter.

Sales of the creative cube-based sandbox today hit six million for the PC version alone, creator Markus "Notch" Persson revealed.

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Minecraft has overtaken Call of Duty: Black Ops on the weekly Xbox Live activity chart.

The studio responsible for porting Minecraft to Xbox Live Arcade has offered a little more detail on which features from the PC game are to be patched over.

Minecraft was the third most played game on Xbox Live last week, Microsoft has announced.

Global sales of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition have hit one million within a week.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition costs 1600 Microsoft Points (£13.60). One million sales equates to £13,600,000 of revenue, of which Microsoft will earn around £4m, based on the company's usual 30 per cent rate.

Players have notched up 5.2 million hours of gameplay, four million multiplayer sessions and 2.4 million multiplayer gaming hours, Microsoft mouthpiece Major "Larry Hryb" Nelson boasted.

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Can 4J's conversion maintain performance in split-screen?

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Pop-in and draw distance revealed in both single-player and two-player split-screen.

From day one, the outright simplicity of Minecraft's core design has been at the heart of its success. Whether you're a modder or a budding block architect, the underlying engine is very upfront with its mechanics, making it easy for just about anyone to understand, to pick apart, and ultimately to make their own.

Is it rational to feel a greater fondness for single-format releases than for multi-platform games? I'm not sure, but I know I do.

Minecraft has smashed the record for the most day-one Xbox Live Arcade sales, Microsoft has announced.

The platform holder didn't offer exact figures, but said that Mojang's game has now overtaken Trials Evolution, which set a new record last month.

Earlier today, creator Markus 'Notch' Persson revealed via his Twitter feed that the console version of his game was profitable within an hour of going on sale.

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FortressCraft developer Adam Sawkins has called the police after suffering a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on his game's website the day voxel rival Minecraft launched on Xbox Live Arcade.

FortressCraft.com was crippled yesterday after the XBLA port of Minecraft launched to critical and commercial acclaim. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson tweeted to say the 360 version, developed by the Dundee-based 4J Studios, was profitable after just an hour on sale.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Sawkins refused to name check Minecraft fans, but, reading between the lines, it's clear who he believes is responsible. "F**k you and your 'community', @Notch," he tweeted.

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An array of Minecraft-themed alcohol shots have been created by Cornish gaming cafe Loading.

I can't say that Minecraft passed me by - how could it? It's a full-blown 21st century sensation, a hit indie game that changed all the rules, a perfect storm of internet fame. It's been pretty hard to ignore.

But Minecraft did happen without me. Somehow I never played it - perhaps because I was foolishly waiting for it to come out of its endless alpha test - and all of a sudden it was a thing that I wasn't part of and didn't get, even though I understood it. Like so many of the great online PC games, from Counter-Strike to League of Legends, it became a cult that I didn't know how to join.

Well happy day, because this excellent new version for Xbox Live Arcade is made just for me. Mojang, the company formed by Minecraft's affable creator Markus "Notch" Persson, has worked with Microsoft and port specialist 4J Studios to build a Minecraft that's slightly less advanced, much easier to get to grips with and perfectly tuned for its slick and friendly platform, while preserving almost all of the original game's unquestioned genius.

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Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson is being courted by Creative Assembly for the next Total War game.

Controversial world-building game FortressCraft has just notched up its 750,000th sale on Xbox Live Indie Games, according to a Tweet from its developer Adam Sawkins.

A subsequent post added that it's on track to hit one million within the next 10 months.

Sawkins' game has been plagued by accusations that it's merely a Minecraft clone - a claim that he refuted in a recent interview with Eurogamer.

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Indie phenomenon Minecraft has raked in $80 million in revenue since launch, according to a Financial Times report.

As detailed in financial filings from developer Mojang, its revenues for the 15 months since the game's October 2010 release now total 540m Swedish krona - around $80.8 million. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation sit at $13.5m.

That's not far behind fellow Scandinavians and Angry Birds developer Rovio, which reported revenues of $100m last year.

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Microsoft has announced release dates for a number of high profile Xbox Live Arcade titles, as part of its new Arcade Next season.

As detailed on its Major Nelson's blog, the XBLA version of Minecraft launches on 9th May, priced at 1600 Microsoft Points.

Stunt bike sequel Trials Evolution lands on 18th April, priced at 1200 Points. That's followed a week later by gory hack and slash effort Bloodforge, also for 1200 Points.

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The Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft will launch without Kinect functionality, it emerged at Microsoft's recent Spring Showcase.

The Xbox 360's own version of Minecraft, the phenomenally successful indie title from Swedish developer Mojang, was announced at last year's E3, and was originally slated for release late last year.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft will also be base on version 1.6.6, which released on PC last May. It's the intention of 4J, who is working together with Microsoft Games Studios and Mojang on the port, to bring the game up to speed with its PC counterpart through a series of patches - one of which will introduce Kinect support.

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FortressCraft creator Adam Sawkins has rejected claims his Xbox Live Indie Game hit is a Minecraft clone and hit out at Markus "Notch" Persson and his company Mojang.

Mojang has accused Minecraft clones of failing to do anything new - but confirmed it won't sue their makers.

Minecraft has launched on PC, Mac, Android and iOS, and it will launch on Xbox Live Arcade - but it will not launch on PS Vita.

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A pitch for an official Minecraft Lego product line has passed the Danish toymaker's internal review system and is now in full development.

Millionaire Markus "Notch" Persson doesn't think the "indie" moniker best describes his studio Mojang any more.

The studio behind the Xbox Live Arcade port of PC phenomenon Minecraft believes it will be the first game on the system to see "constant updates".

As it stands, the update process on the Xbox 360 is a laborious process, as Microsoft demands to approve every single patch before it goes live. Paddy Burns, chief technology officer at Minecraft XBLA developer 4J Studios, told Edge that that's about to change.

"Microsoft knows that to do a similar thing that's on PC where they constantly update it, that's a very difficult thing to do on Xbox because you have to go through the full tests," he explained.

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More than 20 million people have registered for block-based sandbox PC phenomenon Minecraft, creator Markus "Notch" Persson has announced.

Of the 20,121,024 Minecraft users (and counting), 4,667,176 people (at the time of writing) have bought the game.

Free users are limited to the outdated Minecraft Classic build. But those who pay get the game's survival mode, and can hunt animals and pick apples from trees.

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Indie megastar Markus "Notch" Persson is no longer the lead developer of the game he created, Minecraft.

A day of coding with creator Notch.

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The Xbox Live Arcade port of indie world-building sensation MineCraft is due out in Spring 2012, rather than this Winter as originally planned, Microsoft Game Studios has announced.

Notch: "Embarrassing for all of society".

Minecraft creator Marcus 'Notch' Persson has Tweeted work-in-progress screenshots of dragons flying around in his hugely successful world-building indie game.

The creator of Minecraft clone FortressCraft has called out what he describes as the "Notch Defense Force", and inisted his game is nothing like the indie phenomenon.

Minecraft isn't sold on Steam because the digital distribution service "limits" in-game transactions, Markus "Notch" Persson has explained.

A mobile exclusive?

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson has gone into detail on the shock lawsuit threat from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim publisher Bethesda.

Bethesda has accused Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson of infringing an Elder Scrolls trademark.

Indie sensation Minecraft has just reached another astonishing sales milestone.

"Minecraft just sold its third million copy!" Tweeted creator Markus "Notch" Persson.

The news follows last month's revelation that Minecraft had passed the ten million registered user mark.

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PC indie phenomenon Minecraft now has in excess of 10 million registered users, creator Markus 'Notch' Persson's has revealed in his blog.

Minecraft on Xbox Live Arcade, announced during Microsoft's E3 press conference, looks set to be very different from the PC version.

The developer behind the Xbox Live versions of Banjo & Kazooie and Perfect Dark is making the Xbox 360 version of PC hit Minecraft.

Indie PC sensation Minecraft has passed 2.5 million sales, game creator Markus Persson has announced.

"2.5 million sales!" he exclaimed on Twitter. "That's as much as Diablo 1 and Far Cry, according to Wikipedia."

Meanwhile on his blog, Persson revealed that the game's release date of 11th November may have to move, because MinecraftCon venues on that day are all booked up. "One week later, perhaps?" he thought out loud.

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Notching up a new platform.