Minecraft tops 200 million sales as it dominates the YouTube charts

By Chris Morris May 18, 2020

While Animal Crossing: New Horizons might be the hottest video game of the pandemic, Minecraft is hitting some significant milestones as well.

Sales of the 11-year old game have topped 200 million copies, Microsoft said Monday in a blog post. Even more impressive, 126 million people are currently playing Minecraft each month. The news comes as part of the game’s birthday celebration on May 17.

Minecraft is even more popular on YouTube. In 2019, it was the most viewed game on the streaming site, Microsoft says. And that popularity is likely to see another spike later this month as Minecraft Dungeons is released on May 26. A free Nether update is coming to the base game this summer as well.

Microsoft has leaned in on Minecraft as people have been locked in their homes due to stay-at-home orders. As the coronavirus pandemic began to spread, the company made the Minecraft: Education Edition free to educators to help students stay engaged. It also launched the Minecraft Education Collection in the main game, incorporating content from some of the most popular Marketplace partners. Both services will remain free through the end of June.

Since March 24, there have been more than 50 million downloads of the free educational content.

Minecraft has also partnered with the United Nations Development Programme to share the World Health Organization’s coronavirus prevention guidance.

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Chris Morris has covered consumer technology and the video game industry since 1996, offering analysis of news and trends and…

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