By now gamers are pretty familiar with the cultural phenomenon that is Minecraft. Mojang's brick-based creative experience has dominated the gaming landscape since exiting beta a few years back, to the point it has become easier to name platforms the game isn't on than to name platforms it is.

However, while Minecraft is now a console game, a mobile game, and very shortly will be a next-gen game, it's still widely considered to be a PC game first and foremost. PC is where the title started, and it's where most of the latest updates launch first.

But while PC might still be considered king among the Minecraft faithful, it's no longer king of sales. Just recently the collective console versions of Minecraft passed the PC and Mac versions in terms of total sales.

The news comes courtesy of Mojang's Patrick Geuder who says that, in addition to the console editions passing PC/Mac, worldwide sales for the entire franchise have reached 54 million.

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While we suspect that plenty of those 54 million copies were double, triple, or dare we say quadruple dips by devoted fans, the sales numbers are nonetheless impressive. Hearing that the console versions are now outselling the PC/Mac versions, though, isn't as surprising.

Why, you ask? Well, despite its early growth among the indie PC scene, Minecraft has dug its hooks deeply into younger gamers. Chances are you know at least one young gamer who plays Minecraft, and they likely own it on more than one platform. But most of those platforms, at least in my experience, are not PC.

It might be that parents feel more comfortable letting their kids play Minecraft on a console, or it could be the ease of use that comes with those platforms, but whatever the case is it seems the Xbox 360 and PS3 are now the new kings.

And we wouldn't be surprised if the console space continued to gain ground; that is, before the Vita, and maybe even the 3DS, take hold of Minecraft. The series has already hit huge numbers thus far, but Minecraft on Vita could be a massive hit.

How many different versions of Minecraft have you bought? Even if the console versions are the best selling do you still consider the PC version the best?

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Source: Patrick Geuder

Follow Anthony on Twitter @ANTaormina