Microsoft and Mojang are once again making moves in the mobile industry, by announcing that the Windows 10 Edition of Minecraft will be shipping to Windows Phones. Previously, players weren’t able to play the Windows 10 Edition of Minecraft on their Microsoft-powered smartphones, and this led to a large fallout with the Minecraft mobile community, or at least the ones that were playing on that platform.
Before the Windows 10 Edition came out, players were able to play the most up to date version of Minecraft on their Windows phones in the form of the Pocket Edition. Support for that game has been since terminated. To be more specific, it’s been that way since October 2016. If you’ve purchased the Pokect Edition in the past, you will get a free upgrade to the Windows 10 Edition. If not, you will have to buy it for $7.
Microsoft is making moves
Talks about Microsoft’s mobile business plummeting have been around for a while now, with the platform sinking deeper each day. This is a good strategy which will allow the Windows developer to keep a large portion of its mobile user base by offering them support for Minecraft, one of the most popular games available.
A report shows that Microsoft only held 0.3% of the sale shares last quarter with their Windows Phones, meaning that the company is hardly pressed to bring some innovative or enticing elements to the platform. By offering users Minecraft in its most up to date form, the company is looking to give them an extra reason to continue using Windows phones. It is worth noting that the game only works on Windows 10 devices (hence the name), so if your phone uses the older Windows 8.1 operating system, you won’t be able to rock this new edition.
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft can maintain its customer base with the addition of Minecraft, or if the mobile OS will continue to descend and get discontinued as predicted. Microsoft has announced earlier that it is in no way considering that possibility and reassures the community that it is working on new updates that will improve the platform.
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