Minecraft Pocket Edition for Windows Phone already in early stages of development

A few weeks ago, Microsoft acquired Minecraft makers Mojang for a rather large sum of money. The next obvious question is when can we see Minecraft Pocket Edition for Windows Phone? After all, even BlackBerry 10 has it at this point. Microsoft's Phil Spencer did claim it would happen, even for Windows 8.1.

As it turns out, Mojang had begun development of a Minecraft port to Windows Phone before the acquisition. So says Tommaso Checchi in a series of recent tweets. Checchi is a developer on the Mojang team and even tweeted a photo of the game, seen below, listed in the app menu of the dual-SIM Lumia 635, which seemingly confirms it runs on 512 MB phones too.

Checchi was surprisingly forthcoming about the game, noting:

"Btw, here's another reason we've been pretty busy… The port is in the first stages though. It's kind of slow now and needs optimization, so in full Mojang style the release date is "soon"™. And nobody forced/threatened us if you're wondering! Actually, we started before the whole Microsoft thing :)"

Certainly, this is good news for those yearning for Minecraft on their phones even if older folks like myself still do not understand the game (get off my digital lawn!). Although there is no timeframe for release, it appears that the game development is well under way and likely accelerating with Microsoft's purchase of the company. Here is hoping to a year-end release.

Source: Tommaso Checchi (Twitter); Thanks, unnatixlr8, for the tip!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.