UPDATE - After Notch's twitter tease (below) Sony confirmed that Minecraft will indeed be arriving on a Sony platform, none other than the PlayStation 4. At Gamescome earlier today, Sony revealed that the game was one of the most requested ever from fans, so Sony buckled down to get the game to fans as quick as they could. It's unknown if the game will be available on the console at launch, and what, if anything, will be different about it. We'll update further as more information becomes available.
The original article is below.
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At this stage, Mojang is essentially a printing press. The feather in its cap, Minecraft, has been sitting at the top of charts as one of the most played and downloaded games for months on countless platforms - PC, Mac, Xbox Live, smartphone, the list goes on and on, and it looks like one other platform is about to be added to it.
It's hard to write much about a subject so new and that so little is known about, especially when the latest "development" is a three word tweet, but given the sheer magnitude that is Minecraft, it warrants mentioning.
Going by a tweet written by Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson, it looks like after the extremely long period of exclusivity with Microsoft, the literal sandbox title is finally making its way over to Sony. "Minecraft+Sony=true" was all Notch tweeted, so we can't be certain if this means Minecraft is coming to the PlayStation 3, 4, Vita, or some sort of combination, but it's exciting news to say the least.
Recently, a number of indie developers have expressed frustration over Microsoft policies towards indie titles, particularly with regard to self-publishing. While the company eventually did an about face on its policy, it still left a number of developers with a bad taste in their mouth.
Notch himself told Edge Online on the matter - "I think it's a wonderful idea to have the actual box be the dev kits. This makes it easier for both the developer and for Microsoft, and presumably they could make it a lot cheaper since they'd only sell unlock codes. I realize there are other factors at play here, though, like a perceived need to make sure only 'legitimate' developers get access to it, so a monetary barrier might still be in place." So it seems unlikely he's abandoning Microsoft altogether, and that he'd rather just have Minecraft available on as many platforms as possible.
It was made clear in March that Notch was eyeing releasing the ultimate sandbox game on other platforms once the exclusivity period with Microsoft was up, specifically naming the PlayStation 3. Sony remembered this, and wanted to remind Notch about it, so the higher ups sent the crafty creator a golden PSone as a VIP invitation to the company's E3 press conference.
With MineCon fairly close, it looks like another big announcement is due. We'll keep you posted if Notch decides to explain this tweet further.
