Minecraft PS3 Release Date In May? Mojang Wants To Be Ready To Launch Once Xbox Exclusivity Deal Expires
PS3 owners, your wait is (almost) over. Mojang announced that once their exclusivity deal ends with Microsoft they plan on bringing their smash-hit "Minecraft" to the PS3. "Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition" was released in 2012 and, although no time limit has been announced on the deal, Playstation Lifestyle is predicting that the deal will end in May. The speculation comes after Jens Bergensten, the lead developer for "Minecraft" told iGamer that the company was looking to other consoles in the immediate future.
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"Microsoft has an exclusivity deal for consoles. When it runs out we'll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely," he said.
Bergensten also confirmed that his team is working on bringing the Minecraft Pocket Edition experience closer to its PC counterpart. "Our current ambition is to get the so-called online multiplayer going," he said. "This means that you'll be able to connect to dedicated servers, instead of only connecting to other people's devices."
He didn't speculate on whether or not this would mean cross-platform multiplayer, and said that the biggest challenge facing Mojang right now was bringing "Minecraft" to so many different platforms.
"The biggest challenge has been, and still is, finding the lowest common denominator for all the various mobile models there are on the market. It's an obstacle to a lot of features that we have on the PC version, such as infinite worlds and redstone contraptions. Over time we'll have to drop more and more models in order to add fun stuff to Pocket Edition," he said in the interview.
Although this is the latest example of Microsoft exclusivity keeping great content off the PS3 (we're looking at you Call of Duty!) I have to wonder if a "Minecraft" PS3 version will be coming in the next few weeks or if Mojang wants to hold off and make the title available for the PS4. It could be an interesting launch title strategy, and the PS4's highly touted "share" button would be well-suited to the share-happy nature of "Minecraft." Joining friends in real-time or being able to drop resources on them would add some liveliness to the game and definitely represents the kind of social/console gaming hybrid the PS4 is shooting for.
