Minecraft XBLA to Begin as a Beta

Similarly to the PC version of Minecraft, developer Mojang has revealed the Xbox 360 version of the game will release initially as a beta

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson explained to Develop how Mojang's lack of experience developing on consoles led to the decision of another studio porting the game to the Xbox 360:

None of us have done any console games before because it takes quite a lot of resources, which is why we’re using another company called 4J, in Dundee, Scotland. They have great experience in working with Microsoft and seem to be a perfect fit for us,” he explained.

The way we’re going to do it is similar to how we did Minecraft on the PC. So we’ll do a beta version first or something like that and then try to get feedback – find out which parts are actually fun to do, what do you like doing when playing on the console as opposed to the PC.

Minecraft's PC version is still in a beta phase, with plans to make it into a full launch on November 11th. Despite the game being in beta, it has sold over three million copies to date.

Thanks, GameInformer.