Minecraft gets Vita release date and movie news

4J Studios, the British developer which handles Minecraft's console editions on behalf of creator Mojang, has tweeted a confirmed release date for the eagerly awaited PlayStation Vita edition of Minecraft. And it's not too far off at all: the game will be released on 14 October.

That's the date for us here in Europe, anyway. 4J offered a follow-up tweet which revealed that a US date has yet to be nailed down.

This is especially good news for those who were worried that Microsoft's recent $2.5bn purchase of Mojang would see Minecraft favour the Xbox. At the time of the buyout, Microsoft pledged to keep Minecraft available on all its current formats, and it seems the company is true to its word.

If you already own the game on PlayStation 3, you'll be able to transfer your saves to the Vita version. The game also supports Cross-Buy, so when you buy it for PS3 you also get access to the PS Vita version – and vice versa. That's not true of the PlayStation 4 version, which has too many technical differences, including much larger worlds, in order to be playable on previous consoles.

Mojang has also spilled a few beans on the Minecraft movie, in development at Warner Bros. Chief operating officer Vu Bui told The Guardian that we can probably expect to settle down with our popcorn to watch big screen Creepers and Ghasts in “three to four years”.

The important thing for Mojang, it seems, is that the movie doesn't stifle player creativity. “We don’t want any story that we make, whether it’s a movie or a book, to create some sort of ‘this is the official Minecraft, this is how you play the game’ thing,” Bui told the newspaper. “That would discourage all the players who don’t play in that way.”