Still don’t know Minecraft? Well, if you use iTunes, the block-building virtual world game is giving you a wake-up call. The game is now the top grossing app on iTunes and settling between the top third and fourth paid app overall.

Minecraft Pocket Edition was released on November 17 and formally announced yesterday at MineCon, the first official event for the game happening in Las Vegas right now (see my write-up below).

Currently within iTunes, Minecraft shows as the top most grossing app and number four for paid apps overall:

It actually made the top grossing chart yesterday, after only one day and before the official announcement, Mojang (the company that makes Minecraft) said yesterday.

But the iTunes Charts area on the web (rather than within iTunes), shows Minecraft is the third most popular paid app:

That puts it just behind Angry Birds, which leads to my post from yesterday about MineCon and the Minecraft phenomenon: Move Over Angry Birds, It’s The Minecraft Coming Out Party.

Angry Birds? That’s so 2010. The hot game you might not have heard of yet, but chances are your kids know, is Minecraft. And 5,000 Minecrafters have descended upon Las Vegas for MineCon, the first-ever event for Minecraft.

During today’s keynote, Markus Persson — Notch — the creator of Minecraft officially took Minecraft out of beta status. Minecraft also gained a version for iOS, and a new version was announced for Xbox 360, to be released in Spring 2012.

What’s Minecraft?

I’m one of the hundreds of slightly confused parents who have accompanied their kids to MineCon. “What’s that,” you can ask many adults here with kids, and the response will be, “I don’t know, you have to ask my kid.” Seriously, I could start a support group.

But Minecraft, a virtual world game that’s popular despite its retro blocky-graphics look, isn’t just for kids. There are plenty of adults who enjoy the game, as well, and a thriving industry of gamers who share what they’ve built and how to play on YouTube.

Seriously, YouTube is big with Minecrafters. There are Minecraft YouTube stars wandering around MineCon, and they’re getting mobbed.

Below, my live blogging of today’s keynote and the news that came out of it.

Warming Up The Audience

The audience has come into the room, with the stage set complete with an “Activate Minecraft” lever:

The auditorium has darkened, and a video begins, talking about how Minecraft has evolved. A deep voice narrates the changes. Lava! Multiplayer versions.

Notch wanted a more challenging game. Survival. Zombies, skeletons, sheep and pigs — and creepers. Minecraft gained a “classic” version with a new version started that added more tweeks and improvements, like infinite terrain.

Then, the first major version of the game was released. “Not like released released but available?” says a second voice on the video. It’s been making snarky jokes all along along about everything the main narrator says.

Then the Nether was introduced (the crowd is now screaming about this). “The game hit beta” says the main voice. Weather. Snow. Lightning storms and rain. And now the main game is here.

The Minecraft Community

A woman with pink hair that rivals Hayley Williams is up welcoming us:

She’s Lydia Winters — MinecraftChick — director of fun for Mojang (the company that makes Minecraft).

Now CaptainSparklez, a big YouTuber, is welcomed to the stage. His Revenge parody song of Usher’s DJ’s Got Us Fallin’ In Love is playing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lydia is back, talking about how that’s just one of hundreds of thousands of Minecraft-related videos on YouTube.

She’s talking more about community, a teacher using Minecraft in the classroom is here. “I’m sorry kids, but you can learn while playing Minecraft,” she jokes. In Sweden, one project is using the game to help build real life structures.

There are 16 million registered users now worldwide, and all the families coming together, a mom told her how she plays with her child and his grandmother. “A teenage guy with his mom at a convention, that’s really super cool,” she says.

Minecraft For Xbox 360

Stuart Platt from Microsoft now talking about the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. He says Microsoft is excited about the game, “it’s become a part of our culture,” he says.

Now the big news: “I’m very proud to say we have the first playable version of Minecraft for the 360 that you can play today here.”

He’s now showing a funny trailer Microsoft made about the news. Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

By the way, here’s a look at the Xbox Live Minecraft booth at the show:

That Minecraft-skinned Xbox? Not a retail unit, and apparently no plans to make one. But you never know. Here’s how the controls operate on Xbox:

Minecraft For iOS

Now we’re getting a short update on the iOS version of Minecraft.

Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iTouch) devices has been released. (Here are some reviews). After being released yesterday, without a formal announcement, it already made the top grossing charts.

NOTE: See my follow-up post, After Two Days, Minecraft Is Topping Grossing App In iTunes.

By the way, there is a version for Android — but it’s still only a demo, with limited features.

Enter Notch

Now Lydia is doing a history of Mojang, explaining all the hires over time, calling each person up on stage, to much applause from each entrances by the audience.

Now Notch is welcomed on stage. Many people are standing to applaud. One person yells that she loves him. “Thank you mom,” he jokes.

How did Minecraft get started? He says he was a game developer who started to do it just for himself. Then started talking about it on various forums, then it grew from there.

The Minecraft 1.0 Launch Video

Now the team from Mega64 comes up to talk about the launch video they’ve made for Minecraft, starring Notch himself. It’s pretty funny. Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is also apparently the official launch trailer made by Hat Films (it wasn’t shown during the keynote but is now posted on YouTube):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Activate Minecraft!

Now the team is called up, and Notch moves to the big switch to officially launch Minecraft, gives it a pull and confetti comes raining down:

That’s it, keynote done. Here’s the whole thing, for those who weren’t there, as recorded by IGN:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Postscript: See After Two Days, Minecraft Is Topping Grossing App In iTunes.

Just an update. About a month after it died and was sent back to Microsoft with the red ring of death illness, my Xbox 360 has returned to me.
Naturally, it’s now so bright and sunny that I have no desire to stay inside playing on it
Actually, my original one didn’t return. They sent a new one, “so that you can get back to playing and enjoying your Xbox quicker,” said the accompanying letter. They also sent two months gold credit for Xbox live.
Still wish I’d had the opportunity to get one of the new units with HDMI output. But the free extended warranty for three years was nice.

The day after I did my Xbox 360 Breaks — And Almost A Month To Wait For Repairs post, Dave Naylor IMd me to say his Xbox had the red circle of death just happen as well. Hmm. I had noticed that when I searched for support, a number of people suddenly seemed to be having this, the three flashing red lights problem. Plus, the issue was a featured support notice on the Xbox site, when I had gone there. Turns out, there’s been a plague of failures — and Microsoft is reacting by extending warranties to three years.

There’s an open letter about it here from Microsoft, covering how warranties are being extended, people are being given credit if they got out-of-warranty repairs and so on. Nice. Especially nice when I found the paperwork for my warranty and was debating if I should pay the $100 to extend it for an additional year (I was still covered under the original one through September). A FAQ provides more details here. Both link to the US site. While this is being done worldwide, the UK XBox site still has no news posted.

Bloomberg says it will cost Microsoft over $1 billion for the repairs. Hey, ship me an Xbox Elite, and we can negotiate on repairing my old unit! The Times reports how some repair centers were rejecting any further units, because they were getting swamped. Apparently, my unit that went out yesterday to nearby Hampshire will instead head to Prague. And one center says the problem was due to motherboards overheating, causing solder to melt (Microsoft officially says there are a variety of reasons). Via Engadget, one report says nearly 1/3 of units are crashing.

Techmeme has a round-up of more. Ironically, Microsoft support was very insistent that my Xbox should not be sent back in the original box. No problem. I no longer had it. Instead, I looked around the garage for a similarly sized box. I should have taken a picture. It went back in my Wii box.

Great. It’s summer, and I was looking forward to things slowing down and maybe getting some Xbox 360 time in. I sit down yesterday for a little Lego Star Wars II action with one of my sons and suddenly, I learn about the red circle of death. A red circle lights up on my Xbox in all but the top right hand corner. Some quick internet searching, and I discover this means the box is toast.

After 15 minutes on hold with Microsoft, then another 15 minutes of talking, they confirm its dead. The plus? It’s under warranty, and they’ll come collect it for free and fix or repair it. Nice. Very nice. Bonus points that I don’t have to pay to ship it anywhere.

The minus? Expect it to take 20-25 days. And since the recording when I was on hold made mention that “if you’ve been waiting longer than 25 days,” I have a sinking feeling it’s not coming back anytime soon.

Wonderful. Guess I’ll fall back on the Wii, but it seriously sucks to be without the Xbox. I was really looking forward to finally getting to play it more over this month. Dang.

What’s worse — now the Xbox Elite has come out in the US with an HDMI output. I’d so have rather have had that on the original box’s sucky component outputs. But we won’t get the Elite until late August in the UK, if we’re lucky. So there’s no reason to push for maybe credit toward a better system nor any ability to just go out and buy the Elite and sell my old one. Nah, just stuck.

Darn, darn, darn!

Xbox Red Ring Of Death? Microsoft Now Giving Free Extended Warranties has a follow-up. I’m not alone!

Ages ago, I almost bought an Xbox 360 in the US to bring back to the UK. The reason? The US always seems to have more games — and sooner plus cheaper — than the UK. Get a US machine, and I could play the US regionally coded games.

I actually did buy a US Xbox 360 at Target (ah, Target….) about a year ago to bring over. However, I returned it almost immediately after seeing the massive transformer wasn’t 110/220 switchable. I have a step-up converter that I could have used, but it’s a pain. I decided to give up and just get a UK console.

Skip forward to this past week. When I was in the US, I found a copy of Ridge Racer 6 for $16. Hell, let’s gamble, I thought. I bought it to try over here. Yesterday, I popped it into my UK machine, expecting it not to work. Instead, it worked great (plus, it’s a lot of fun to play!).

I don’t know if all US games will work, of course — and I’m not sure if I want to risk it for a $60 US game. Looking around, this forum thread pointed to this Xbox 360 Regional Compatibility Guide. Hey, “Battlestations: Midway” works! That chart is one for the bookmark list.

Postscript (June 13, 2010): The guide above no longer seems to be online, though perhaps only temporarily. There’s are alternative source here, here and here that you can try.

People don’t take pictures of their kids playing Playstation or XBox. I’m just saying. — Jeffrey McManus

That quote has stuck in my mind since Jeffrey wrote it last December. I totally understood, after watching the kids play with the Wii myself. It’s just cute.
Tonight, both my boys got to box against each other since we bought another nunchuck controller that you need to go on the regular controller in order to do the boxing game. It cracked me up seeing them go at it. Here’s a clip that I hope brightens anyone’s day:

About two weeks after the US, the Nintendo Wii finally arrived in the UK. I’d
preordered and picked mine up yesterday. So far, it’s a big thumbs up. Sure,
it’s not HD-quality images. Who cares! The games and the unique controllers are
a ton of fun.

So far, I’ve played Wii Sports, which came with the console. I love those
computer boxing games, where you try to knock out your opponent by swinging at
the screen. The Wii is fantastic for this. The tiny sensor bar that sits under
your TV screen reads the movements of the wireless controllers that you hold.
Let the matches begin! I’ve always found those games to be good exercise in the
arcades, and it certainly kept me moving at home.

Next up was bowling. Me and my two boys had a game, and it feels really
realistic. Raise the controller up to your face, let it drop like swinging a
ball and release the B button to send your ball down the alley. It was easy to
send a flying power throw or to do a gentle release to pick up a spare. But darn
if the kids aren’t beating me.

I’ve been reading those scattered reports of people sending the controllers
flying or hurting themselves while playing. I can totally understand both and
have more sympathy. You’re constantly almost throwing controllers at the screen,
so a good grip is required — and having the wriststrap on an essential backup.
The Wii warns you about this each time you start, so there aren’t a lot of
excuses to make.

On the injury front, my littlest got too into it despite repeated warnings
and slipped over when throwing one of his balls during bowling. Crack, down he
went on the controller. New rule — they can’t play the Wii while wearing socks
on.

Some time ago, I posted
how pleased I was that the Wii would be region-free. Later reports said that
this wouldn’t be the case. I’m still looking to find out if so but haven’t found
anyone giving a definitive word on having tested it.

The Wii box is tagged at PAL (as also noted

here), but that’s a video format rather than region standard. Games are also
marked as PAL. I suspect that US games will be marked as NTSC and probably won’t
play. But I might take the plunge and purchase a US game, to see how it goes. If
not, maybe I’ll get an NTSC version when they (and I) are back in the US again
and sell my UK one on. Having an NTSC console wouldn’t be an issue, since my set
(and many other sets in the UK) can handle either NTSC or PAL.

The lack of games is one reason I’d like to try. The new Trauma Center game,
Excite Truck and other launch titles in the US are nowhere to be seen in the UK.
It’s a serious bummer.

Other regional notes. The power block for the Wii is 220 only, not 110-220
auto-sensing. That’s not that big of a deal — the output is 12V, I believe –
and a US Wii should put out the same 12V. If I brought a US version over, I’d
either use a 220 to 110 down converter that I have (and commonly sold) or see if
there were spare power blocks sold over here.

Finally, when you fire up the Wii PAL-edition, it asks you to pick your
country from a list of many. Australia and the United Kingdom are two of those
on the list. The US is not.

I have a multi-region DVD player here in the UK, which means I don’t worry
about the stupid regional coding that manufacturers have tried to foist on us.
Game console makers have tried the same thing. But bless Nintendo, because
they’re breaking the mold with their latest game console, the
Wii.

Getting a multi-region DVD player is easy. Many DVD players will have a key
sequence you enter into the remote that removes coding. A few have to be
"chipped," where there’s a hardware modification made. Many sellers do this for
practically nothing. It’s so common that even large retailers will advertise if
a player is multi-region capable. It’s not some back room shady operation.
You’ve got Brits coming back from Florida trips loaded with American DVDs –
they want them to work here. The market can’t be denied.

The other hurdle with playing a non-UK DVD is if your TV can handle it. If a
disc outputs the NTSC standard used in the US, how’s a PAL-standard UK TV going
to cope? As it turns out, most DVD players I’ve seen automatically do the
conversion, so the standard isn’t an issue. More and more UK TVs are also NTSC
capable.

Game consoles are harder. I have an Xbox, locked to European games. I’ve
never tried putting a US game into it. If I did, I suspect it won’t play, based
on what I’ve read online. The regional coding should prevent it from playing.

Want to overrride that? There’s no magic code I know of letting you do this.
Instead, it’s back to having the Xbox chipped. Unlike with DVD players, this
isn’t something commonly done.

The next issue is the video standard. The UK Xbox outputs PAL. A US disc will
want to spit out NTSC, if I understand correctly. Even if the disc could play,
the TV would need to handle the different video standard. Actually, I think the
Xbox will spit out something called PAL-60 that would make this work, if not for
the regional coding.

All this leads to the absurdity of the Xbox 360 getting regional coding. The
Xbox 360 games in the US can put out HD TV resolutions of 720p or 1080p. If you
have a UK HD TV, it can natively handle those resolutions. The video standards
are the same. So why not make the discs region free? I can only assume because
Microsoft and its game manufacturer cohorts
like charging us in the UK up to
twice the US prices.

Enter the Wii. I’ve been anxiously waiting for this, especially since the
Xbox 360 disappointed me and the PlayStation 3 looks to be an overpriced,
further delayed launch. Wii’s going to be our fun new game console.

Wired has an
article
about how the Wii will be region-free, just like the Nintendo DS. It’s great
news. I was already thinking of just buying one in the US and bringing it over
here. No need, now. Thank you, Nintendo. It’s yet
another reason I love you more.

By the way, I did recently get an Xbox 360, as well. I’m going to do a
separate post on that, on why I decided to go back after
returning my original one
earlier this year. The short story is that we now have an HD TV, so I wanted the
fun of playing high resolution games (the Wii won’t be HD). Plus, there are more
interesting games out — and the deals were better.

The Nintendo DS Lite came to the UK this week. I’d been thinking about getting one for myself, rather than borrowing one of the kids’ DS Nintendos as I’ve been doing recently. Normally, I wait for a trip back to the US to buy items like this, as they’re often a little cheaper. But the prices were good — £100 (about $185) versus around $145 or so with tax in the US, from what I can see. So I went for it here today and was immediately pleased with the decision.

I won’t go into depth about the whole size and weight thing. There are plenty of reviews out there covering this stuff and this great screencast I saw a month or so ago. Instead, I’m going to touch on some general impressions, especially as a parent considering these for the kids.

The DS Lite is much smaller and lighter than a regular Nintendo DS. When I play a game, I’m often sneaking one in before going to sleep. So I’m holding the DS above me and looking up, which gets tiring. Immediately, I could feel holding the DS Lite was much easier.

Thinking like a daddy, I’ve also realized this means less weight to be trucking around in my backpack. Two boys, each with their own DS, that’s me carrying them in my pack to places like when getting our haircut, to football practice and so on. Hmm, maybe upgrading their DSes would be good for me. More on that in a bit….

The screen is excellent, in terms of the better brightness. I’ve been playing Trauma Center: Under The Knife (great game, separate post on that in the future) for the past two weeks or so. I’ve been stuck on one operation. I can’t say that seeing things more clearly alone is the reason is why I finally got past it today. But it did help.

The longer stylus is also great. My hand keeps cramping up with the old stylus, to the point that I dug out a longer stylus from an old Palm I had to use instead. No need with the DS Lite.

As I said, I went in to get a DS Lite for myself. I also have a PSP, and I’ve written how for the kids, I’ve found the DS to be better (see Sony PSP Vs. Nintendo DS: A Parent’s Perspective). But now almost a year after owning a PSP, I’ve made the shift myself to the DS being the better gaming platform.

OK, as I’ve written, I’m not a big shoot-em-up game fan, nor a racing game fan, nor a sports game fan. And that pretty much covers what seems to be 95 percent of the games for the PSP.

Over New Year’s, I did have a great week getting through The Sims 2 on the PSP. I really enjoyed that, despite the pig-slow load and save times and the occasional crashes. Of course, I think The Sims 2 was out on the DS well before it came to the PS plus would have been easier to play with a touchscreen.

I’ve also enjoyed playing Star Wars: Battlezone 2 on occasions over the past few months (put people in the Star Wars universe, and suddenly a shoot-em-up sounds fun!).

That’s pretty much it. Detlev Johnson was trying to get me into some Lord Of The Rings multiplayer game that sounded cool, but I really want some strategy game I can play on my own.

Meanwhile, after seeing the Trauma Centre commercials on TV constantly (hey, branding works!), I decided to get it on a trip to the US recently. I remember years and years ago loving playing a similar game on the Mac. So when I can grab a little time here and there, I play.

Chris Raimondi also gave me a copy of Brain Age at our SES London show (thanks, Chris!), which I’ve been doing at least once every week (UK users — buy yours here or learn to say things in a US accent. The US version doesn’t respond to my wife unless she does that). So that’s been another reason I’ve been grabbing a DS from the kids more and wanting my own.

A new Ages Of Empire is about to come out — there’s Zoo Tycoon that’s also of interest to me, more reason to go DS. Plus, I’ve already got Animal Crossing: Wild World, supposedly for the kids but something I like playing at. And as I’ve written, the Atari Retro pack with Missile Command still rocks. Color me a DSer!

I still wish the screens were bigger and that the DS had some of the multimedia capabilites of the PSP. But I don’t use the PSP much for that anyway. In the end, I guess I’ve given up on the PSP as a gaming platform for me. Sorry, Sony — you had your chance but Nintendo rocks.

While I went to get a DS for myself, tomorrow I’m pretty likely to get them for the boys, as well. Why? The unexpected trade-in offer. Game is giving £40 credit, while Gamestation is giving £45. Plus, Gamestation gives you a free game (any game) with your purchase. So that’s £100 – £45 credit – £20 for the typical cost of a game and it’s £35 effectively for an entirely new unit, one that’s lighter, with a fresh battery, that hasn’t had two years of knocking about, with clean screens before I realized how important screen protectors were for heavy handed kids. I was sold.

Downsides? I am a bit concerned that maybe the DS is too small for little hands. That sounds odd — small should be better for little hands. But little kids are clumbsy, so having something larger to grip on might be better. But they seem OK with mine so far, when I actually let them touch it, that is

Also, after buying two different cases that never worked, I finally found the perfect case for kids and the Nintendo DS at Game. I don’t see it on their web site now, but Lik-Sang carries the case for anyone who wants to order from them.

The protector is cheap — like $7. It clips on easily to the Nintendo DS and stays on. It doesn’t slip off. It doesn’t cover any of the buttons or screens, like some protectors do. But everything external has a nice shell of plastic to protect against drops. Plus, the bottom of the protector has nice shaped ridges that make it easy to hold on to. Once I put my kids’ Nintendo DSes into these, I stopped worrying about them getting broken.

It took forever for a decent case like this for the Nintendo DS to come out. I didn’t want to go back to square one with the DS Lite. But checking Lik-Sang today, they have similar cases for the DS Lite. Phew.

By the way, I also found the perfect game case. Originally, I went for an official Nintendo DS case, which has room to hold some of the games in a pocket. But it’s not a zip pocket, so the games were always falling out. In addition, the case itself didn’t provide protection for the DS when taken out of the case.

Instead, I came across a game wallet at Game. I’ve got two now. Originally, there was one to hold a few DS games and more space for Gameboy Advance ones. Then a new version came out with more room devoted to the DS. I still see that in the stores, while online, this version looks like it will give even more room to DS games. The wallet opens into three sections and holds the games fairly securely when open. Just never put a DS game into one of the plastic slots that have already held an GBA game, because it will have stretched to much to hold it tightly. When closed, nothing falls out. The kids are under strict instructions that all games go from the Nintendos and into the wallet. And sometimes, they even do this Eventually, I’m sure someone will come up with a case absolutely guarantees none of the games will get lost. Until then, Game has the best I’ve found.

A plus — and minus — is that the Lite uses a mini-USB plug for charging. Wow! This is great in that it’s one less power adaptor I have to worry about. I love that USB is slowly becoming a standard charging means for some many things. I should be able to charge it off my laptop or using my iPod, phone, Dell Axim or any of the chargers I have that take a regular USB port into them. On the other hand, I’ve got to dig out and find if I have a car USB charger, because the old Nintendo DS car charger I have will no longer work. I’m sure I’ve got one somewhere. If not, they’re pretty cheap.

(Postscript: As it turns out, while it looks like a mini-USB socket, none of my mini-USB plugs will fit into it. Annoying.)

Surprisingly, the Lite doesn’t come with a wriststrap. I find it useful to have one, but I don’t know if the kids use them much. There is a connection for a wriststrap, if you buy one separately. Need some? Again, Lik-Sang’s got some (what don’t they have!).

A slight downside is that GBA games, while still accepted, stick out of the case a little bit. They’re still in pretty far and secure. There’s no real chance you’d accidentally break one off. I like that they were so flush with the old ones and love that it effectively means you have two games available to the kids without them having to seek out the game wallet, which I don’t always take with me. Would have been nice if they could have been flush in the Lite, but even better might have been the ability for the DS Lite to hold two different DS games (or a bigger screen, or to take an SD card, or…)

That’s about it so far. Well, one last thing. Back to the cases, I may end up getting one for myself. Pdair makes leather ones in various colors, like this one in white or this one in black from a UK supplier. I like that the case is thin yet still has room to hold three DS games.