Minecraft Xbox 360 Retail Edition Delayed To June

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft won't be arriving this month as planned. Microsoft's Major Nelson announced this weekend that the release has been pushed into the early summer.

The retail edition of Minecraft was supposed to arrive on April 30th in the United States. The new release date is now June 4th. That's the same time period that Microsoft was planning to launch the game in Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan. Major Nelson tweeted that the game was delayed in order to ensure that "the very latest content" is included.

When Microsoft first announced the retail release of Minecraft, they said it would ship with Title Update 9. TU9 introduced a new adventure starring a black drake called the Enderdragon. The patch arrived on Xbox 360 last week. Does Microsoft not have enough time to get the updated game to manufacturers and into stores by the end of the month, then?

It's possible that Microsoft is planning to include Title Update 10 of the game with the boxed version. Title Update 10 is set to make a number of bug fixes to the game. Xbox Live Silver users won't experience errors with saves anymore, and collision issues with ladders should be eliminated.

The boxed version of Minecraft will cost $20. It will support cross-platform play with the downloadable version. Both versions will receive updates on the same schedule.