Minecraft is about to land on iOS devices, and a MineCon convention in Las Vegas is just around the corner.
One could say Mojang's Minecraft is a building and exploring game.
However, on the verge of its iOS release at 8 p.m. PT tonight, the simple (yet incredibly complex) game is poised to become much more. Minecraft has become a multiplatform cult title that recently sold 4 million copies while in beta; eclipsed a staggering 2 million fans on Facebook; and is about to be the center of a two day sold-out convention in Las Vegas. MineCon will also be the launchpad for the first non-beta release, which will be known as version 1.0.
Fans of the title remember the Android version, which debuted exclusively for the Xperia Play some months ago and then eventually came out on other phones using the operating system. Unfortunately, the $6.99 iOS version isn't much different, and only supports local multiplayer over Wi-Fi. iPad owners will be delighted to see that the app is universal, and will scale accordingly to their larger screen.
Diggers will only be able to explore randomized worlds in creative mode with 36 different kinds of blocks.
We hope that development will eventually bring it up to par with the desktop version, as this mobile experience sadly does not include survival mode. From my observation, developer Notch has let few people down so far with the evolution of the game (which has an incredible modding community).
As the hours pass, Minecraft for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch will become available for all countries on iTunes. It is already available in New Zealand, as seen in the official link.