Minecraft PS4 Heads to Stores in October; Vita Details Coming Soon

PlayStation 4 owners who prefer to buy physical copies of their games rather than digital copies will soon be able to add Minecraft to their collection. Sony announced today that Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition is headed to retail in North America on October 7 for $19.99.

Coinciding with the retail version's release, a patch will be distributed on PSN on October 7 "to ensure you have the best Minecraft experience possible on the PS4," Sony says on the PlayStation Blog. This is said to be a "day one patch," which is a curious name for it considering Minecraft is already available as a downloadable game on PS4.

That version was released earlier this month, with Sony describing it today as having been a "successful launch." (You can pick that version up for only $5 if you own Minecraft on PS3.) That shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given the game's strong performance on every platform it comes to. Its first appearance on a PlayStation platform was last December, when it was released on PS3. Since then, it's been the best-selling PS3 game on the PlayStation Store every month in the United States.

Sony also today said it'll have more news (including cross-buy details with the PS3 version) "in a few weeks" regarding the PlayStation Vita version of Minecraft. Following Microsoft's acquisition of Minecraft maker Mojang, there was some question about what would happen with the Vita version, even though there were indications that it wouldn't be pulled from PlayStation or iOS platforms (despite being direct competitors with Microsoft hardware).

Xbox boss Phil Spencer today said he believes the Vita release should still happen. Given this new promise of more details from Sony, it seems to be indicating that nothing is amiss regarding the long-awaited handheld version.