Markus Persson, founder of Mojang, the Swedish developer behind indie phenomenon Minecraft, has exclusively revealed to Gamasutra that an official iOS version of the hit open-world game is currently in the works for iPhone and iPad.
The port is being developed by Aron Neiminen, a new recruit to the Mojang team, and will be released later this year.
Persson said that the iOS edition will not receive every update that the original browser and download version gets, but rather will be granted those features that "make sense" for the touch-screen platform.
The game has received numerous unofficial Minecraft releases on iPhone and iPad, but this is the first official iOS release from the Mojang team.
[UPDATE: Weblog Kotaku is reporting that an official Android-compatible version of Minecraft is also in the works for later this year.]
Minecraft is currently in the beta stages, with a full release planned sometime this year. So far over 1.3 million copies of the game have been purchased, with nearly five million registered accounts on the official site.
Gamasutra talked to Persson recently as part of the Road to the IGF series. The developer discussed his inspirations for Minecraft, including the likes of Dwarf Fortress, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Dungeon Keeper.
He said, "I knew from the start that I wanted it to be a fantasy resource-based first person adventure type of game, but it took quite a while to reach that point."
Go Minecraft Go! I love how a game made by an engineer on almost no budget manages to have more content then so many AAA-games out there...and sells so much on no advertising budget at all.
I love Minecraft, but I'm going to have to call foul on this. Minecraft does not have more content than any AAA game. Sure, you can make a lot of stuff, but even that's basic - fact is, there really isn't a lot of content inside the base game.
it seems that Mojang's been adding a lot of new stuff recently though, so hopefully by the time it makes it out of beta there's a lot more blocks / items in there.
Go Minecraft Go!
it seems that Mojang's been adding a lot of new stuff recently though, so hopefully by the time it makes it out of beta there's a lot more blocks / items in there.
But if it is, that seems like a gross oversight of the article.
FFS, did you even read the damn article?
Quote: "The port is being developed by Aron Neiminen, a new recruit to the Mojang team"