When Notch announced back in mid-September that he was leaving the Minecraft developer Mojang, because he had officially sold his stake in the company and the game itself to software giant Microsoft (after attacking Oculus VR for doing the same to Facebook earlier in the year), many were worried that Microsoft would upheave one of the most iconic games ever made.
There was a big worry too that it would release a sequel, as that seemed about the only way it could hope to recoup the money it spent on the franchise.
However Microsoft has now come out and officially denied that it is planning to release a sequel and is instead, for its first task as overlord of Minecraft, will be asking the community where they want the game's development to go.
"I don’t know if Minecraft 2, if that's the thing that makes the most sense," said Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer. "We need to meet the needs and the desires of the community before we get permission to go off and do something else."
He did reiterate that Microsoft may not listen to everything the players want, but that their requests will be seriously considered.
"It doesn't mean that everything we’re going to do is going to map to 100% of their acceptance, because I don't know if there is any topic where 100% of people agree," he said.
"But job one is to go out and meet the needs of the Minecraft community first, and then we can think about ways that we can actually help grow it. That’s our sole focus."
