Even well after its public release date in 2011, Minecraft continues to have its success grow, as Microsoft made an official announcement to declare that the sandbox video game from Mojang has monthly count of about 55 million unique players. Not to mention, the title's sales have resulted in upwards of 121 million copies being sold cumulatively.

For those unaware, this is Microsoft's official sales and engagement update for Minecraft since June, as the company then confirmed 100 million sales and 40 million unique monthly players. In order to celebrate the sizeable boost in these figures, Microsoft has taken to the title's official Twitter account to post a couple of tweets with some accompanying animated GIFs that touch on the grand scope of the sandbox release's successes in relation to sales and monthly users.

For those unaware, Microsoft purchased developer Mojang back in May 2014 for a whopping $2.5 billion in order to acquire the rights to Minecraft after the game's success continued to mount after its release. This was done despite Dungeon Keeper and Fable series creator Peter Molyneux claiming at the time that the tech firm had originally believed the sandbox title to be "rubbish."

While there's no telling what Microsoft's true beliefs about Minecraft's quality are, the company's purchase of Mojang has certainly been a lucrative business venture considering the sales number and monthly player count released today. It's also important to note that with Minecraft having been confirmed for the Nintendo Switch, sales and monthly user counts ought to rise even more so, as there will surely be plenty of fans looking to give the game a go on the Big N's newest platform.

One of the major reasons behind Minecraft's continued success has to be due to the game's developers providing a sumptuous offering of post-launch support, with one of the more recent expansions being a DLC pack inspired by the incredibly popular Fallout franchise. Should Microsoft and Mojang keep offering up quality add-ons for Minecraft while also engaging with its global community of players, then it's safe to say the sandbox game will be around for a long time.

Minecraft is out now for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, and is slated to be released on Nintendo Switch sometime in 2017.