Best-selling indie game sensation, Minecraft finally has a release window for its latest revisions. While the specific date is still being set, developer, Mojang has confirmed that their world-building/survival sandbox sim will come to PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Xbox One this August.
Those who already own Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which has now sold 12 million copies worldwide across both retail and digital packages, will be able to spend just $5 to upgrade to the Xbox One edition of the game, normally continuing to retail for $20 on the Xbox One Games Store. Xbox 360 save states can also be carried over if you’re upgrading to the Xbox One version, eliminating the need for players to start from scratch, and some, but not all of the DLC and texture packs you may have purchased for the Xbox 360 release can be freely transferred to the Xbox One edition if you upgrade.
Sony has now confirmed that a similar offer will be in place for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita builds as well. Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition will be cross-buy with the PlayStation Vita release, so anyone who already owns the game for PlayStation 3 will receive the PlayStation Vita version for free, and vice-versa if they’re opting to initially buy Minecraft for their Vita. The two games can be acquired together for the same $20 asking price, any PlayStation 3 DLC and texture packs will work immediately and for free on PlayStation Vita, and game saves are freely transferable between the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game.
Likewise, PlayStation 3 players can upgrade to the PlayStation 4 edition for the same $5 price as the Xbox platforms, and can transfer PlayStation 3 saves to the PlayStation 4 version, though DLC transfers to Sony’s next-gen build are similarly vague as the Xbox releases. You unfortunately won’t be able to move PlayStation 4 saves to PlayStation 3 at all either, due to unspecified technical reasons. It doesn’t seem like the PlayStation 4 version will be able to share saves with the PlayStation Vita version as well, though Vita owners can likely take comfort in the fact that the PlayStation 4 build of the game will inevitably support Remote Play functionality anyhow.
This continues to leave Nintendo without any Minecraft releases on the 3DS or Wii U, despite all current PlayStation and Xbox platforms hosting it now. Mojang has expressed interest in bringing the game to Wii U at some point in the future, but no formal announcement of a Wii U edition of Minecraft has currently been made.
Will you be upgrading your copy of Minecraft to a next-gen console? Will you perhaps try it out for the first time with these next-gen and portable revisions? Feel free to leave your comments below.
Eggplante will continue to excavate your critical news and updates on Minecraft, as we can survey them.