In the end one tweeted reply from Head of Xbox Phil Spencer broke the news that Minecraft would be making its way to the mobile form of Windows. When asked if the game would be appearing Windows 8.1 Surface and Windows Phone 8.1, Spencer replied simply “Yes.”
That’s all we have to go on for now — no details of what the Minecraft port will look like, when it will appear, or how much it will cost. ‘Pocket’ versions of the title are already available for Android ($6.99) and iOS ($6.99). An Xbox One version has just been released, and Microsoft has promised to continue to support the game across multiple platforms.
Some industry commentators had speculated that a mobile push for Windows Phone was behind Microsoft’s decision to pick up Minecraft. The universal app approach that the company’s engineers introduced in April — where the same code can run across computers, phones and consoles — would seem to make sense for a future Minecraft release. PC was the first format that the game appeared on back in 2009.
Microsoft’s deal for Minecraft developer Mojang went through at the start of the week for $2.5 billion. The game’s creator, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, together with Mojang’s Carl Manneh and Jakob Porsér, have all now left the company to work on other projects. “As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small Web experiments,” said Persson in a farewell post on his website. “If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
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