Bedrock Edition

The Bedrock Platform, the Bedrock Codebase or the Bedrock Engine refer to the multi-platform family of editions of Minecraft developed by Mojang AB and Microsoft Studios, originating from Pocket Edition. Prior to this term, this entire product family has been referred to using terms like "Pocket Edition", "MCPE", or "Pocket / Windows 10".

Bedrock engine powers Pocket Edition, Windows 10 Edition, Gear VR Edition, Apple TV Edition, Fire TV Edition, Education Edition and an upcoming port to Xbox One Edition.

As with Console Edition and the Java version, updates are free of charge.

Gameplay
section needs rework

The objective of the game remains the same as its PC and Console Edition counterparts, where players can build virtual realities in a sandbox-like environment. Like its counterparts, Pocket Edition also has survival elements present in other versions of the game such as brewing, hunger, and dimensions like the Nether and the End. The multiplayer mode is cross-platform compatible between all touch-screen devices capable of running Pocket Edition.

The HUD and other elements are adapted to mobile standards of gameplay. Interactions are made via touchscreen (both the iOS and Android versions of Pocket Edition have the same gameplay ). To comply with the disadvantages of touchscreen gameplay, several features were revised. For instance, the crafting system uses the MATTIS system and items are disposed by long-tapping their icon on the hotbar. For better visibility on mobile screens, blocks being aimed at are highlighted rather than outlined. Unlike mobile's crafting menu, Windows 10 edition's crafting menu is similar to PC and Console crafting menu. The game was released with graphics akin to that of Minecraft Alpha (bright green grass blocks, old cobblestone texture, etc.), but as of Alpha 0.8.0, graphics have become equivalent, and arguably better, than the PC version with light tinting and shading affected by the Sun's position. Differences from the PC edition include:


 * Some mobs have some sort of difference from their PC counterparts. See the Mobs section below.
 * Multiplayer allows for 4 ways of player connection:
 * Through LAN, allowing for 5 players to be on a single world
 * Through Pocket Realms. Pocket Realms was closed in Alpha 0.7.6 and now available again in Alpha 0.15.0.
 * Through a user-created external server. A list of server software can be found here.
 * Through Xbox live

Exclusive features
Pocket Edition differs from the PC version in a variety of ways, such as more vibrant graphics, revised terrain and exclusive items. The development team stated that once Pocket Edition is up to date with PC, it will start making its own diverse progress.

Development

 * Planned Versions
 * Mentioned Features
 * Removed Features
 * Development Versions

Maybe, leave all this on the Pocket page, and make this Development section more about how the first spinoffs were "based on Pocket," and eventually how BE came to be referred to by the names Innovation and then Bedrock?

Release
A video of an early prototype was released on Twitter, showing the game on the Xperia PLAY. The alpha version was later released, and became no longer exclusive to the Xperia PLAY on the 7th of October 2011. The non-exclusive version was going to be released on September 29th for Android but there were several severe bugs that needed to be fixed; the release was delayed until the 7th of October.

A version for iOS devices was confirmed to be released before 2012 in an interview with Mojang and was subsequently released on the 17th of November 2011.

Alpha
After the initial releases for iOS and Android, updates were released in parallel, with the same features being added for both platforms. During the Alpha stage, various aspects of gameplay were introduced into Pocket Edition including: crafting, smelting, more blocks, items, mobs and more game modes to bring it closer to the PC version. As the Minecraft Pocket Edition development team works closely, often blocks released on the computer version are released around the same time for the Pocket Edition. Certain features were also tested on Pocket Edition before their PC releases, such as beetroots and their related items, and also block models.

Full Release
On November 11, 2016, the 1.0 (Ender Update) was announced. It was released on December 19, 2016.

Builds
Starting on November 22, 2013, Mojang began to publicly release testing versions of full updates to Android users who opt into the beta program, in order to get major feedback, especially for bug reporting. This enabled the official updates to be considerably more stable.

Versions from 0.8.0 to 0.12.1 required opting into a Google+ group to receive development builds. Players would then see development updates appear as normal updates in the Play Store. On July 17, 2015, the Google+ group was removed due to the amount of spam and advertisements that the group attracted."  On November 3, 2015, the PE Beta team published a dedicated blog which was subsequently used for users to opt into the 0.13.0 beta program and to display changelogs for these development builds.

Success
As of December 2013, Pocket Edition (the only Bedrock Codebase edition at the time) had sold 16.5 million copies, while at the same time, the Computer edition had sold 13 million. These calculations came out after the 0.8.0 update. This was considered a huge success, with Pocket Edition outselling both the Computer edition and Console Edition, despite being considered to be the least-developed at the time.

On December 2, 2016, Marsh Davies announced that Pocket Edition had sold over 40 million copies (at the time, Computer edition had sold over 24 million). It is not clear if this statistic included Windows 10 Edition and other Bedrock Codebase editions or not.

Pocket Edition is also usually in the top 10 and regularly #1 in the App Store's and Google Play's Paid Apps Section in the Top Charts.

Gallery
Needs images, carefully chosen from the various articles