Minecraft, the insanely popular build-em-up that's been making waves on the Internet, will soon be joining Apple's mobile devices with an official port. Mojang, the developer behind Minecraft, says the game will be hitting the iPhone and iPad later this year, according to Gamasutra.
Creator Markus Persson says the small screen version won't receive every feature the original version had, but rather those that make sense with the new control scheme. Heading up development is newcomer Aron Nieminen, who will be responsible for porting over the original game and giving the platform its first official Minecraft release.
While Minecraft is still in beta stages, the game has been in development for a considerable length of time. The first official release was in May 2009, and Minecraft only entered the beta stage two months ago. The fact that Mojang has started to port its work to other platforms may be a sign that a final release is imminent, but either way the beta tag hasn't stopped customers from showing their love. On January 12, Minecraft reached one million sales, and by February 8 the game had four million registered users.
Persson's project has gone from strength to strength after the founding of Mojang. PC Gamer UK named it Game of the Year, and Good Game named it Best Downloadable Game of 2010. Minecraft's future looks promising, and along with the iOS port and the final release, Persson also has plans to implement a modding API to let users change the game around and share their mods with the community.
Update: Daniel Kaplan has confirmed via Twitter that an Android version is also in development.
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