Minecraft is coming to Nintendo's Wii U console. Better late than never!
Mojang and Nintendo said today that Minecraft: Wii U Edition will be released for $29.99 via the Wii U's digital store on December 17. The Wii U version of the game will include some of the game's more popular content add-on packs that have been released over its life on other platforms, and additional content packs, mostly with branded content like The Simpsons and Dr. Who, will be available for in-game purchase.
Great, great. So what took Nintendo so long?
Minecraft really shouldn't have taken Nintendo by surprise. The block-building, survival-themed, creative kids' masterpiece was already incredibly popular in the spring of 2012, when Microsoft and Mojang released the game for the Xbox 360's download store. Nintendo at that point should have aggressively pursued a similar deal, working alongside Mojang to craft a unique Minecraft experience for Wii U's GamePad controller, which would lend itself quite well to Minecraft's creative building gameplay.
Currently, there are disc-based versions of Minecraft for Xbox 360 and One, PlayStation 3 and 4. Combined, these games were the 10th-best-selling retail title in the United States in September, even though they were released months or years ago. And that's not counting digital sales, or the mobile versions, or the original PC game.
Finally, Wii U gets to join the party. And this release does indicate that Microsoft, which acquired Mojang in 2015 for $2.5 billion, plans to be platform-agnostic with its Minecraft property. It could simply cancel any other versions and require you to own an Xbox or Windows platform to play it, but instead it's expanding Minecraft's reach. (Microsoft and Nintendo have historically been buddy-buddy anyway; other Microsoft properties have appeared on Nintendo platforms in the past.)
Would a more timely release of Minecraft have saved Wii U? It's impossible to know, but in 2012 a well-executed version of Minecraft would have been a killer app. Too bad Nintendo at the time seemed more interested in chasing ports of Call of Duty and Mass Effect that ultimately sold nothing.
But that's a bunch of pixelated water underneath the blocky bridge.
What can Minecraft do now? Well, Nintendo should get a disc version out as soon as possible, and then release a console bundle with Minecraft packed in and prominently displayed on the box, assuming its deal with Microsoft would allow such a thing. This would be at least a minor boost to Wii U's fortunes.
The real question, though, is what Minecraft could do for NX, Nintendo's next dedicated game device. If a Wii U version of Minecraft now means that NX can play Minecraft on day one, then perhaps this should be seen as less of a hail-Mary for Wii U and more of Nintendo getting all its blocks in a row for a real run at its next generation.
