We wrote earlier today that Telltale revealed the first trailer for Minecraft: Story Mode at Minecon, but that wasn’t the only news for mobile gamers that came out of Mojang’s London party. The Swedish company also revealed Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta, a new version of the game for Microsoft’s new OS. When I first heard about this new version, I wasn’t particularly interested; however, I then realized that the Windows 10 version is the same as Minecraft: Pocket Edition ($6.99), and the two versions will have the same features, be updated together, and offer cross-play. Tommasso Checchi, an MCPE developer, said that the first beta of the Minecraft: Windows 10 edition, which will come out July 29, is technically MCPE 0.12 (Tomasso also said the MCPE version will hopefully come out on or around the same day as the Windows version).
I'm going to say this because the drama is already too much: Windows 10 Edition *is* MCPE, and will always be updated together with it!
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) July 4, 2015
What does this mean for those who play Minecraft on their mobile devices? Well, now I understand why MCPE developers said recently that more developers would work on the game soon. Since Microsoft has paid A LOT of money for Minecraft and it’s also betting a lot on Windows 10, I expect Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition to be Microsoft’s way of attracting users to its OS. Therefore, Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition will likely catch up to the PC version quickly, which means the MCPE version will also probably gain parity with the PC version.
That means that MCPE is going to get a lot of features, and that Win10 and MCPE players will be able to play together 🙂
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) July 4, 2015
In the video posted below, Tommasso and Guude (of Mindcrack) play the Windows 10 version and show off the Nether and other features, all of which should be coming to MCPE very soon. I’ve played (too?) many hours of Minecraft on my PC, and I’ve been patiently waiting for the Pocket Edition to reach some kind of parity so I can continue my building escapades. Now, with Microsoft’s might and money fully behind MCPE, that day is probably drawing very near.
Happy 4th of July!
