Minecraft has sold over a million copies, again. This time though, it only took them a week...

The phenomenal success of Minecraft is a pretty well covered subject at this point, but forgive me for running over it once more. Launched in its Alpha stage in 2009, the game was met with widespread acclaim, and gathered a large and loyal following of fans. When its Beta stage was released in December 2010, it took less than a month to rise to over a million sales, and a little over a year later, in February 2012, sales of the game were around 5 million. Bear in mind this is a game developed primarily by one man, with very limited funds and resources.

The incredible success of Minecraft didn't end there though. Last week Minecraft: 360 launched onto the Xbox Live Arcade, and absolutely smashed all the existing sales records. Launched on May 9th, In its first 24 hours on sale, it became the fastest selling game on the Arcade. By May 14th, just 5 days after its release, sales had reached 1,000,000. To put this feat in perspective, not only does it make Minecraft the fastest selling Arcade game ever, but it also means a staggering amount of money for Mojang, the game's developers.

Priced at a fairly reasonable £13.60, you don't have to be a maths whiz to multiply that number by a million. Microsoft takes a 30% cut of all Arcade sales, roughly 4 million in this case, but according to a tweet from Notch (Minecraft's developer) the game became profitable within an hour of the launch.

The Xbox port of Minecraft was produced by a tiny Scottish company called 4J Studios. Working out of a tiny studio in East Linton, near Edinburgh, a small team of dedicated designers worked for 11 months to port the game from PC to Xbox. They were recommended to Mjoang on the strength of their previous work with Microsoft, including porting Overlord 360 and Oblivion 360 to the PS3.

The success of Minecraft: 360 means an awful lot for both Mjoang and the small Scottish studio. Paddy Burn, the studio's director said:

"The sales of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition have been mind-blowing, and to break the day one sales record, and hit a million sales in five days is difficult to comprehend, but everyone at 4J, Mojang and Microsoft is delighted by the success."

With the resounding success of the Xbox version now clear, and the PC version continuing to enjoy huge sales, the future is only looking brighter and brighter for Minecraft.

See also:

Minecraft's custom worlds continue to beguile jaded gamers

8 Reasons why The Elder Scrolls Online will bury a great games franchise

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