It seems like Minecraft is reaching some kind of absurdly high amount of players stat every other day of the week, and today is apparently no different.
Mojang's own Johan Bernhardsson tweeted that the Pocket Edition of Minecraft had been purchased over 5 million times, which is very impressive considering the Pocket Edition doesn't come close to offering nearly as many features as the 360 or PC versions. Evidently, people just can't seem to get enough of this block-building sandbox game.
Just last month, the ranks of total Minecrafters out there swelled to include over 8 million players total, and that's just the PC version, according to PCGamesN. And the month before, the total amount of players on the XBLA version hit the 4 million mark (a stat no doubt helped along by the fact that the version was selling approximately 17,000 copies a day).
With a price tag of less than $30, it's not hard to see why so many people have latched onto the Minecraft phenomenon. Updates to both the XBLA and PC version should not only keep the player base, but expand it as well. As it stands now, Minecraft is currently the third most played online game on the Xbox 360, coming in after Halo and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Updates are currently being worked on by Mojang for both the Xbox 360 and PC versions.
As for the pocket edition, the next update hits early next year. Last added to the pocket version were skeleton, spider, and creeper mobs, swords and bows to fight them with, the ability to cook food, and beds and paintings to make your home a bit more spiffy.
Similar to Angry Birds, Minecraft also has a slew of merchandise including shirts, scarves, magnets, sticky pads, and recently, even Legos. Mojang is even open to the idea of a movie or television show. It even has its very own convention called "Minecon," and was recently celebrated at Disneyland Paris.
