Minecraft is an absolute juggernaut. But then again, most of you have probably already realized that a long time back. In November of 2019, Microsoft revealed that Minecraft had sold "just" 180 million copies around the world. Six months later in the here and now that is May 2020, Microsoft reveals that the game sold another 20 million units to hit the incredible 200 million units sold mark.
Perhaps even more incredible is word that Minecraft has 126 million people playing the game monthly. A big bonus for the game comes courtesy of this little pandemic thing we have going on right now. According to Microsoft, there has been a 25% increase in new players just in the past month. In addition, there have been a 40% increase in multiplayer sessions.
Some of these impressive figures come with a bit of a catch. The 200 million sales figure remains untouched. There is nothing that can take away from that monumental figure. However, the reveal that there are 126 million players takes a bit of a hit when you take into account the China situation.
According to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX), Minecraft is available as a F2P release through publisher NetEase. That 126 million active user count includes China. Without that country being included in the total number of monthly active users, there is no saying how many paying customers are playing Minecraft on a monthly basis.
China's free-to-play release also apparently adds in another 300 million registered users to the 200 million units that have been sold. There may be some overlap here and there, but in essence, this seems to suggest that between the F2P release in China and the rest of the world, Mincraft is "owned" by nearly 500 million people. Of those 500 million people, it is played monthly by around 126 million people. No matter how you slice it, those are some very impressive figures.
Recently, Minecraft has branched out a bit from its typical style. While the core game reigns supreme, Microsoft hopes to capture even a little bit of that magic once more with other upcoming titles like Minecraft Dungeons and the augmented reality mobile game, Minecraft Earth. Recently, Minecraft recently kicked off a special real-time raytracing beta by way of Minecraft with RTX.
Minecraft is available on pretty much everything. It's even available on platforms such as Fire OS, the PlayStation Vita, and tvOS.
