Nintendo Thinking About Minecraft on Wii U, 3DS

The popular crafting game is a good fit for the Wii U Gamepad and 3DS, Nintendo execs say.

Nintendo has been thinking about bringing Minecraft to Nintendo devices, according to comments made by Nintendo executives.

Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi, heads of Nintendo's internal development teams, said to Kotaku that they believe Mojang's popular crafting game would be a good fit on the 3DS and Wii U. According to them, the touch control of the Wii U Gamepad and the 3DS would allow Minecraft to reach a wider audience than ever. In Takahashi's words, "We've always thought internally that using the GamePad would probably make for a Minecraft that's very easy to play. And, of course, if we were to do something with Minecraft on the 3DS, similarly we would probably do it where it would be easier to play and could probably reach a lot of kids."

Their focus for a possible Minecraft port is to make it appeal to as many users as they can. This does not seem to be an obstacle, however, but rather an opportunity. Both executives see a wide, untapped market in Japan where the game has yet to really take off. "What's interesting is that, in Japan, Minecraft is not popular in the way it is in the U.S. and Europe," Takahashi explained, "so we've also thought that, if we were able to do a partnership like that, it might bring opportunity to help make Minecraft more popular in Japan."

Miyamoto also revealed that he has never actually played the game, but this didn't stop him from hinting further at the possibility of bringing it to Nintendo consoles. According to him, only Nintendo hardware would be able to mesh the widespread appeal of the touch-based mobile version of Minecraft with the precision of console controls. "Our hardware is the only hardware that you can do both the touch control and stick control," he said.

Minecraft is available for the Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 3, and mobile devices, and is coming to PlayStation 4, Vita, and Xbox One some time in August.