One of the biggest moments at last month’s Oculus Connect developer conference was the revelation that Minecraft, the stratospherically successful retro-styled social title, is coming to the Oculus Rift and Samsung’s Gear VR. Now, Oculus CTO John Carmack has stated that he’s working hard himself on optimising the title for virtual reality.
John Carmack revealed during his keynote speech at Oculus Connect 2, held in Hollywood last month, that one of his crowning achievements since joining Oculus was to be instrumental in successfully brokering a deal with Microsoft to bring Minecraft to the Oculus Rift and Gear VR.
In a tweet today, the ex-id founder and co-creator of Doom, said that in the wake of Oculus’ developer conference, he’s actively working on the title for both platforms.
Post-Connect I have been busy working with @_tomcc and the Microsoft/Mojang team on Minecraft for Oculus. Coming along great!
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) October 8, 2015
Minecraft will come to Windows 10 and the Oculus Rift next year but Carmack has said that the Gear VR is on the way and is essentially ported from the mobile-friendly ‘Pocket Edition’ of the title.
@Kithop @_tomcc it isn't Win 10 only, it is also GearVR, which the java code was never going to run effectively on. Not Mac/Linux, true.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) October 8, 2015
Quite how closely Carmack is working with Microsoft on the title is unclear, but it’s great news for fans of VR and Minecraft regardless.
Minecraft arguably represents the biggest software title announced for Oculus hardware yet, with an estimated 54 million copies sold across multiple platforms worldwide. Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang earlier this year for $2.5 billion, half a million more than last years acquisition of Oculus by Facebook.
We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.
— Markus Persson (@notch) March 25, 2014
Mojang founder Markus Persson (aka Notch) was famously vocal about Oculus’ acquisition, vowing never to develop for the company’s virtual reality platform again. Persson later u-turned on that position stating..
And about now I'm officially over being upset about Facebook buying Oculus. I'm upset about there being a hole in my favorite sock instead.
— Markus Persson (@notch) August 15, 2014
Carmack has doggedly offered to bring the title to VR himself, with one exchange responding the u-turn reading “…say the word, ship the source, and i’ll make sure It runs well on you-know-what…”
