Minecraft is very popular. So popular in fact that its total global all-format sales have now exceeded 106 million copies – and the most popular format for the game is mobile.
In a blog update, Minecraft developer Mojang has broken down some of the more impressive stats surrounding the game. Accounting for sales on PC, console, and the Pocket Edition, the game has sold 106,859,714 copies.
Most surprisingly, given the game originated on PC in 2009, the desktop version of the game is now the least popular in all regions except Asia and Asia-Pacific. Minecraft Pocket Edition tops the charts for most users overall, and for most users by region, with the exception of South America.
Europe has the most even spread of Minecraft players across formats though – 36 per cent on mobile, 35 per cent on consoles, and 29 per cent on PC. Globally, console figures combine the game’s release on all platforms, so actual users across Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, and other formats fragment the numbers further. Credit Mojang
Sales haven’t slowed down, either, despite the fact roughly 1.5 per cent of Earth’s 7 billion-strong population has already bought the game. Minecraft has averaged around 53,000 copies sold each day through 2016 so far.
Mojang puts the player base numbers into perspective by contrasting against actual population figures. If every person who’d bought the game formed one brick-loving country, it would be the 12th most populous on Earth, coming just behind Japan.
“We’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to every one of you who’s bought Minecraft over the past few years, no matter which platform you play on,” wrote Mojang’s Owen Hill. “We’re constantly in awe of our community and the amazing things you achieve together. You really are the best. <3”
Given Minecraft Pocket Edition is the reigning champ of all things mining and crafty, it’s only fitting that Mojang has announced a wave of improvements coming to the game in its next update. The upcoming 0.15 release (a beta version of which can be signed up for now) upgrades both Pocket and Windows 10 editions of the game, and will integrate Xbox Live achievements on iOS and Android, use less bandwidth for online play, and introduce a whole new user interface for the main menu.
Known as ‘The Friendly Update’ – Mojang promises “mysterious, as-yet-unspecified friendliness” – it will also introduce new block types, more villages, and ridable pigs, while fixing almost a dozen bugs.
Specifically, game maker Mojang has sold more than 106,859,714 copies of its game to date, as of June 2, or approximately 53,000 copies sold per day.
“We’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to every one of you who’s bought Minecraft over the past few years, no matter which platform you play on,” Mojang Creative Communications Director Owen Hill wrote in a blog entry. “We’re constantly in awe of our community and the amazing things you achieve together. You really are the best.”
Mojang created an infographic to mark the occasion (below), in which it revealed that people from every country and territory have tried out Minecraft, including four sold to crafters in Antarctica.
Inspired by roguelike role-playing titles, Minecraft was created by Markus “Notch” Persson and released to the public as a developmental version in May 2009. More than two years later, it shed its beta skin and launched a full PC version in November 2011.
It quickly caught on, topping 3 million Xbox 360 sales by July 2012; the game later hit PlayStation 3, PS4, and Xbox One, before Microsoft acquired Mojang for $2.5 billion in the fall of 2014. Minecraft finally reached the Wii U in December
Last summer, fans also got a taste of the exploration game in augmented reality when Microsoft demoed Minecraft on its futuristic HoloLens headset.
This isn’t the first milestone for the fast-selling title: In April 2015, Mojang introduced its first female character, a red-haired woman known as Alex, companion to blue-shirted man Steve—the game’s only other pre-loaded figure.
Just don’t hold your breath for Minecraft 2: Mojang recently revealed that it has never even discussed the possibility of a second-gen title; the company is content to continue developing the existing game.
Bethesda is once again struggling to get its game running well on consoles. And while it has a fix, the company probably cannot wait for that allegedly upgraded PlayStation 4 Neo.
Far Harbor, the first big expansion for Fallout 4, does not run well on PS4, and the publisher has pushed out an update in North America to patch it up. Gamers playing the open-world adventure’s add-on pack on Sony’s console are reporting a rough framerate that produces a choppy, unsightly image. Bethesda has done the work to improve that, but you’re going to need to follow some instructions to ensure you get the update. Fallout 4 is one of the biggest games in the world, and is continually one of the most played releases in the $99.6 billion gaming industry, according to data from the Steam digital-distribution portal.
The well-regarded tech investigators at DigitalFoundry found that the foggy areas of the Far Harbor often caused dips down to 15 frames per second. You can see how ugly that looks in the clip below:
But Bethesda has unleashed the update in North America, and you can get it by overcoming the following obstacle course:
Boot up your PlayStation 4 and ensure that Fallout 4 is closed. You can do this by hovering over the game, hitting the Options button on your controller, and selecting “Close application” if it’s available.
Go back to the Fallout 4 icon on your PS4 dashboard, hit the Options button again, and this time select the “Related items” menu.
Select “My Add-ons.”
Find the Far Harbor DLC and click on the arrow right next to it to download the newest version.
The content should download and install, and you should have the updated version the next time you boot up the game.
If you’re outside of North America and are wondering when you’ll get the patch, well Bethesda is only saying that it’ll have “more information” soon for European Union players. Everyone else will just have to keep dealing with low-framerate fog.
Pistons are coming to Minecraft. No, not the Detroit Pistons — although that would be pretty great.
Minecraft developer Mojang announced today that it will release piston blocks for free for the Pocket and Windows 10 versions of the building-focused game. Pistons can push away other blocks, which can create complex machines like automatically opening doors. Pistons will be in the upcoming The Friendly Update. It doesn’t have a release date, but Mojang says it is coming soon. Free updates like this keep players engaged and entertained. It’s one of the reasons Minecraft has sold over 100 million copies on all of its many platforms, which also include PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U.
Pistons released for the original PC version of Minecraft in 2012. The console versions have pistons, too. The Pocket and Windows 10 Editions of Minecraft have fewer features than the PC release. Mojang has made an effort to bring more complex tools from the original to the these versions.
“Pistons have been a top feature requested by the Minecraft community, and we are excited to deliver the feature to players soon, which will allow them to create even cooler buildings and contraptions in their Minecraft worlds,” Mojang noted in a press release sent to GamesBeat.
You can watch pistons in action in the trailer below.
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While some (okay, most) are familiar with Paul Reubens because of his portrayal of the iconic Pee-wee Herman in Pee-wee’s Playhouse, the actor has also lent his voice to several animated characters. One of his recent ventures is Ivor, from Telltale Games‘ new episodic game series Minecraft: Story Mode. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the star-studded title takes the same graphic adventure formula made famous by the developer’s previous games (The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Tales From the Borderlands), and brings it to the iconic world of Mojang‘s Minecraft. In the exclusive video above, Reubens discusses his role in the game, how he got the part, and more. Check it out!
According to Reubens, he was approached about voicing a character for the game while at a party in L.A. during the week of E3. With his acting background, and the vibe Telltale was going for (it evokes a bit of The Goonies and, aptly, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure), Reubens was the perfect fit. “To do those voices and watch the finished show and see your voice come out of an animated character’s mouth is a trip. It’s really cool,” he noted.
But, the curious thing about voice acting is that actors don’t have facial expressions and body movement to rely on. Reubens pointed out, “When you’re doing a voice, all of those other factors are up to the animators, so you try to do as much with your voice as you can.” To Reubens, giving the developer as many takes to play with as possible is really important.
Like Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Minecraft was created to encourage young people to think creatively and celebrate originality, which is a great message if you ask us. Seeing the world brought into Telltale’s stable has been nothing short of thrilling. With the first of three brand new DLC episodes, “A Portal to Mystery,” set to release on June 7, we’re excited to see what’s next.
Have you played Minecraft: Story Mode? If so, what do you think of Reubens’ character? Let us know in the comments below, join the conversation on Facebook, or start one with me on Twitter: @Samantha_Sofka.
And in case you haven’t yet checked out Pee-wee’s Big Holiday on Netflix, here’s the cast chatting about the film, as well as their favorite vacation movies.
