The monster that is Minecraft is showing no signs of slowing down, even three years after it officially launched for the PC. The now Microsoft-owned Mojang revealed some stunning new numbers for both the PC and Pocket Edition versions of the open-world sandbox game that puts most others to shame.
Mojang announced Monday that Minecraft: Pocket Edition for iOS and Android mobile devices crossed 30 million copies sold.
We have now (or very soon) sold 30 million copies of Minecraft Pocket Edition. You guys are awesome! ?
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) January 9, 2015
“Let put that into perspective,” Mojang’s Owen Hill wrote jokingly in a post on the developer’s website . “If each Pocket Edition sale was an average sized dog, and you walked said dog every day with a retractable leash in moderate temperatures across uneven terrain, it would consume approximately 290,566,788^3 kj of energy. I know. It’s a big number.” I don’t know what Hill was getting at with that paragraph other than to say big numbers are impressive. 30 million for Minecraft: Pocket Edition certainly is, but what about the PC version? The original build of the game is still going strong as well with more than 18 million copies sold, as recounted by lead developer Jens Bergensten.
Over the holidays, Minecraft (PC) passed 18 million sold copies, and now MC:PE hit 30 million! ? — Jens Bergensten (@jeb_) January 9, 2015
What’s more, the number of people playing Minecraft at any given time continues to grow as well. Mojang’s Nathan “Dinnerbone” Adams’ revealed figures over the weekend that dwarfs other major games.
For the first time ever, we finally have the capability to see how many people are currently playing Minecraft right now. Holy crap. — Nathan Adams (@Dinnerbone) January 9, 2015
There are currently over 998,000 people playing Minecraft right at this moment. It is not even remotely close to being a peak time. — Nathan Adams (@Dinnerbone) January 9, 2015
I could have waited 5 minutes to say 1 million, but nobody would believe that. ? — Nathan Adams (@Dinnerbone) January 9, 2015
Adams later went on to tell Polygon that the number of users playing Minecraft on the PC peaked 1.4 million on Friday, January 9. Interestingly Adams would later go on to say that approximately half of Minecraft players are going with single-player while the other half is doing multi-player. By comparison, not a single Steam game, not even Dota 2 has topped the one million concurrent player mark yet.
The PlayStation and Xbox console versions are going strong as well. The combined might of the PS3 and Xbox 360 passed the PC version just last June. With the PS4, PS Vita, and Xbox One editions now in player’s hands, and with a significant update, this train will not be slowing down anytime soon.
[Images via Mojang ]
