Xbox 360 Edition

Minecraft Xbox Edition is a version of Minecraft for Xbox 360 consoles, announced at the 2011 E3 conference by Notch and Microsoft. MineCon attendees had a chance to play the Xbox Edition before its release. Notch has stated that the Xbox 360 will be the sole console provider of Minecraft.

Development
Notch has confirmed that he will be the game designer on the Xbox Edition, as well as the Pocket Edition, but will not be involved in programming these editions. Notch later announced the team developing the game would be 4J Studios. Daniel Kaplan tweeted about receiving an early copy of Minecraft for Xbox on September 7th, 2011. The Xbox Edition's online play will be compatible with the PC's online servers, and you will also be able to use your account from the PC. Additionally, updates will be free of charge, much like on PC.

Exclusive features
This version of the game will be similar to the PC version, but will also have exclusive features :
 * The player will optionally be able to make use of Xbox Kinect functionality to assist in their gameplay.
 * The Xbox version won't make use of the standard crafting interface as in the original version, but will still have similarities to the PC's 2x2 and 3x3 crafting grids. The interface won't require you to place items in the correct place in a crafting menu, but will simply ask what it is that you want to craft, tell you the blocks required to craft it, and - if you have those blocks - give you the item.
 * A split-screen function will be featured. Whether it will be limited to 2 players or go up to 4 players is unknown, as well as the possibility to play online multiplayer gamemodes in split-screen.

MineCon
The game was showcased as a playable demo at Minecon 2011 and was deemed a 'work in progress'. 4J Studios has confirmed that as of now, it has all the features of the PC minecraft version prior to Beta 1.8 due to the absence of a hunger bar, it is unconfirmed whether they are working on adding 1.8 features or not. IGN has also done a video from Minecon here that shows that the graphics are looking very close to the ones on the PC.

Release
Minecraft is set to release on the Xbox 360 in Spring 2012.

Trivia

 * 4J Studios, the company responsible for the port to Xbox 360, was also responsible for several other video game ports, namely The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the PS3.
 * It is rumored that updates will come to the Xbox version a month or two after corresponding updates for the PC version.
 * As of November 2011, Minecraft was added to the Xbox Arcade download section, although you could only download a teaser trailer. Nonetheless, It was given very high ratings and it confused the XBOX community into thinking that the game had been released.