[quote]We all knew Minecraft would be a blockbuster release for Xbox 360 (see what I did there?), but did we ever anticipate it to be quite so popular?
Today, it has been announced that the game has smashed preexisting sales records, reaching over 1m copies purchased in five days. Within the first 24 hours of release Minecraft had already proven itself to be popular, racing past Trials Evolution’s newly acquired title of most first day XBLA purchases. Bearing in mind Trials’ price tag was 400MSP cheaper than its blocky arcade counterpart, for MC to trailblaze new records is an impressive feat.
So what can we draw from this information? Besides the obvious fact that this game has poured some one and a half billion Microsoft Points into Xbox’s bank account, quite a lot. Firstly it’s nice to see that a much larger percentage of gamers aren’t the die-hard FPS lovers that I initially thought (well, they may be, but at least they’re willing to diversify). I personally think it’s great that a game of such simplicity can generate so many sales. Perhaps it’s the imprinting Lego wished upon us as children rubbing off on our machines. The feeling of childish creativity and accomplishment being held so dear by our nostalgic selves, that when blended with our new favorite medium, technology, we all go crazy for it.
Another point of notice is how capable arcade games are of hitting big sales figures. It’s been no secret that in the past some titles for XBLA have been insanely popular, however such successes were relatively few and far between. Within the past month we’ve had games such as Trials, Minecraft and Fable Heros, to name a few. Although this could be a clever marketing drive, I genuinely believe demand is slipping away from the mainstream insert-your-disc-and-play game to something a little different. You only need to see the success of Angry Birds and other simplistic games to see this is a growing trend.
Just to throw some extra stats into the mix, Microsoft have said that the gamers’ time spent mining has amassed over 5 million total hours. On the multiplayer front, over 4 million player-to-player sessions have been created with 2.4 million hours being spent interacting over LIVE. Coupling this with the ever expanding audience of Minecraft, these figures can only continue to exponentially grow for the time being.
You can buy Minecraft for Xbox 360 via the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for a total of 1600MSP. I own it myself and, although I haven’t had much time to play as of yet, I’d say it’s worth getting. If you want your hours to melt away to minutes, this is the game for you. It doesn’t really scratch the surface of what its PC sibling has to offer, however when you’ve got a computer like mine 1600MSP isn’t digging too deep for the convenience of the game on your console.[\quote]
Today, it has been announced that the game has smashed preexisting sales records, reaching over 1m copies purchased in five days. Within the first 24 hours of release Minecraft had already proven itself to be popular, racing past Trials Evolution’s newly acquired title of most first day XBLA purchases. Bearing in mind Trials’ price tag was 400MSP cheaper than its blocky arcade counterpart, for MC to trailblaze new records is an impressive feat.
So what can we draw from this information? Besides the obvious fact that this game has poured some one and a half billion Microsoft Points into Xbox’s bank account, quite a lot. Firstly it’s nice to see that a much larger percentage of gamers aren’t the die-hard FPS lovers that I initially thought (well, they may be, but at least they’re willing to diversify). I personally think it’s great that a game of such simplicity can generate so many sales. Perhaps it’s the imprinting Lego wished upon us as children rubbing off on our machines. The feeling of childish creativity and accomplishment being held so dear by our nostalgic selves, that when blended with our new favorite medium, technology, we all go crazy for it.
Another point of notice is how capable arcade games are of hitting big sales figures. It’s been no secret that in the past some titles for XBLA have been insanely popular, however such successes were relatively few and far between. Within the past month we’ve had games such as Trials, Minecraft and Fable Heros, to name a few. Although this could be a clever marketing drive, I genuinely believe demand is slipping away from the mainstream insert-your-disc-and-play game to something a little different. You only need to see the success of Angry Birds and other simplistic games to see this is a growing trend.
Just to throw some extra stats into the mix, Microsoft have said that the gamers’ time spent mining has amassed over 5 million total hours. On the multiplayer front, over 4 million player-to-player sessions have been created with 2.4 million hours being spent interacting over LIVE. Coupling this with the ever expanding audience of Minecraft, these figures can only continue to exponentially grow for the time being.
You can buy Minecraft for Xbox 360 via the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for a total of 1600MSP. I own it myself and, although I haven’t had much time to play as of yet, I’d say it’s worth getting. If you want your hours to melt away to minutes, this is the game for you. It doesn’t really scratch the surface of what its PC sibling has to offer, however when you’ve got a computer like mine 1600MSP isn’t digging too deep for the convenience of the game on your console.[\quote]
Wow I got this for my xbox and I spent 5 hours making shit 
I invited like 8 of my friends to my party and we all built shit on my server 
guess this is gonna entertain me for a while