Minecraft (Photo : Youtube)
Mojang announced that "Minecraft" will soon hit Nintendo’s Wii U console. The Swedish video game developer and Nintendo revealed that Dec. 17 marks the date that Minecraft: Wii U Edition will be released through the Nintendo eShop for $29.99.
Disregarding the spin-off "Minecraft: Story Mode," its release will be the first time the game will be available on the Nintendo platform.
The game will incorporate six of its most popular add-on packs – Natural Texture, Battle and Beasts 1 and 2, Fantasy Texture, City Texture, and the Festive Mash-Up. Owen Hill, Mojang’s Director of Creative Communications, added that the company will update the core game with free updates and more content packs in the future.
"Minecraft: Wii U Edition" downloadable content includes skin packs from The Simpsons to Star Wars, The Verge reported.
"Minecraft" became popular back in the spring of 2012 when it was released by Microsoft and Mojang for Xbox 360. Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft, sold the franchise for a total of $2.5 billion. The game was first developed for PC and expanded to consoles PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Vita, iOs and Android. Minecraft will also debut to Oculus Rift in 2016.
Now the question is, why did it take Nintendo 3 years to release the game? According to Wired, Nintendo did not aggressively pursue a similar deal as Microsoft. The Japanese videogame company focused more on acquiring "Call of Duty" and "Mass Effect."
Even without Nintendo’s involvement, the game’s total sales were over 70 million copies as of June 2015. "Minecraft" also made it to the list of the top 10 best-selling retail titles in the United States back in September.
What makes the Wii U Edition different is its off-TV play function. Now, gamers can play "Minecraft" via the console’s gamepad.
