Gadgets & Gizmos

If you’re a Minecraft addict like myself, you’re not alone, in fact you’re part of over 11 million registered players, you may recall that at E3, Minecraft announced the news that they would soon be making its way into the mobile world.

Yesterday, that news was realised as Minecraft: Pocket Edition has just been launched on the Android Market.

The first version (Alpha 0.1) will focus on the creative aspects of Minecraft. We have tried to put in the features that make sense for playing on a mobile device while still keeping the core of the Minecraft experience. You will be able to select blocks on the touchscreen or just scroll through them with the circle and square buttons on the Xperia Play device. The first version also supports multi-player on a local wireless network allowing you to create a world and invite friends to build together.
Some of the features in this release include:

• Randomized worlds
• Build anything you can imagine
• Build with 36 different kinds of blocks
• Invite and play with friends to your world (local wireless network)
• Save multi-player worlds on your own phone

Here comes the bad news, if you’re an Android user with a Droid handset that is anything but the Xperia Play then unfortunately you’re going to need to wait, as the new release itself is for now ‘Xperia PLAY Optimized’ only, meaning that its yours (at a price of $6.99), provided you have the Xperia PLAY.

For the rest of us Minecraft fans in the Android camp, although there’s thus far no word on an official non-Xperia PLAY release anytime soon, we’d be happy to place a bet that the app won’t stay Xperia PLAY exclusive for long, whether that be an official release or a download of the less legitimate variety.