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We already knew that sales for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition came in over the 5 million mark for 2012, but today we’re getting a broader picture of the sales the franchise managed last year. Mojang has shared a list of Christmas Day stats for all versions of Minecraft, and in doing so, the company has also revealed how many sales each version brought in throughout 2012. Needless to say, the numbers for each impress, while the final tally for the franchise in general is pretty staggering.

First though, let’s check out those Christmas stats. Mojang says that on December 25th, 70,808 players either purchased or redeemed codes for the PC and Mac version of Minecraft. When we zoom out and look at the week of December 24th, that number grows to 241,845 purchases. In all, the PC/Mac version of Minecraft brought in 4,177,843 sales throughout the year, which isn’t bad for a game that has been available for a number of years already.

Of course, while the PC version’s sales were impressive, they couldn’t top the sales of the Xbox 360 version. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was purchased 100,416 times on Christmas day, jumping up to 325,591 sales during the larger Christmas week. 5,002,370 sales was the final tally for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which again is something that we already knew.

With the huge number of people getting a new smartphone or tablet on Christmas day, it definitely isn’t surprising that the sales for Minecraft: Pocket Edition managed to come in on top of the Xbox 360 and PC versions. The mobile version of Minecraft netted 283,939 sales on Christmas day, 706,419 on Christmas week, and 5,899,727 for 2012 as a whole. Both iOS and Android sales are counted in this figure, so it would appear that Mojang is cleaning up across all platforms.

Add up all of those numbers for 2012, and we come to 15,079,940 sales for all versions of Minecraft in 2012. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars for Mojang, so the studio is definitely sitting pretty as we head into 2013. We imagine that Minecraft sales will continue to be strong as more players decide to finally jump on the bandwagon and see what all the talk is about, so don’t be surprised to hear Mojang touting similar numbers at the end of this year. We’re you one of the millions who picked up Minecraft in 2012?

[via Mojang]

Minecraft sales top 15 million in 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you have experience issues with audio editing from time to time (as most of us almost certainly do), then you might want to give this new product from Blue Microphones a look. Dubbed Nessie, this new microphone aims to take the hassle out of audio editing and recording, offering a number of features that clean up your recording in real time. That sounds great as far as we’re concerned, especially considering how much of a headache audio editing can be.

Specifically speaking, the Nessie utilizes what Blue is called “adaptive processing,” which combines an equalizer, de-esser, and level control. Through using this adaptive processing, the microphone can clean up your audio as you’re recording it, which could mean that you spend less time editing your track after you’ve finished recording all of your audio. Provided this feature works as good as Blue claims, then it should prove to be a very handy feature indeed.

Of course, implementing real time processing isn’t going to solve all of your editing woes, which is why Blue is also including a “studio-grade” pop filter and a shockmount to help cut back on rumbling and vibrations while you’re recording. You’ll also be getting three recording modes with Nessie, with one tuned to give you richer vocals and another designed to deliver more detailed sounds from instruments. If you’d rather do without those two modes, the third lets you record raw audio, which you can then manually edit after the fact. This way, if you’ve already got audio editing down to a science, you can have complete control over your recordings.

Nessie features a zero-latency headphone jack, and is USB plug-and-play compatible with both Mac and Windows. If you want to record on the go, you can use one of Apple‘s 30-pin to USB or Lightning to USB camera adapters to hook up Nessie to your iPad. If you want a Nessie for yourself, it’ll set you back $99.99, but at the moment, it’s unclear when Blue is planning to make it available. We’ll have that information for you once Blue makes it available, but in the meantime, keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more straight from CES 2013!

Blue Microphones launches Nessie with adaptive processing technology is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It was a close one, folks, but it looks like Elite: Dangerous will become a reality after all. The latest entry in the much-love space sim series reached its Kickstarter funding goal of £1,250,000 earlier today, crossing the finish line with just over two days left to go. At the time of this writing, there are 51 hours left before the campaign wraps, with developer Frontier Developments adding a number of new stretch goals in these final hours.

We already knew that Frontier was planning to develop a Mac version if funding crossed the £1.4 million threshold, a stretch goal that seems within reach now that funding on the project in general has been achieved. If a Mac version of the game becomes a reality, it won’t ship until three months after the Windows version arrives. Windows and Mac users will all have quite the wait ahead of them in that case, as the Windows version isn’t scheduled to arrive until March 2014.

If the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter can reach £1.5 million in funding by the time everything is said and done, Frontier will add 10 new playable ships to the game. That would bring the total number of playable ships up to 25, so players would have quite a few options to pick from if the campaign can raise that extra cash. At the moment, the Elite Kickstarter has £1,262,441 and that number seems to rising relatively quickly, so these stretch goals may just make it into the game.

Frontier has also added a new reward tier to the Kickstarter campaign to help boost pledges as things begin to wind down. For £25, you’ll get a digital copy of the game along with a bonus 500 starting credits, so it doesn’t sound like a bad idea for those who want to support the game but don’t want to shell out a ton of cash. There’s are 5,000 spots available with this new £25 reward tier, so you might want to get in quick if you want one. Did any of you give money to the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter?

Elite: Dangerous reaches Kickstarter goal with two days left is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Sumitomo Electric Industries have announced that they’re the first group in the world to receive certification from Intel to produce optical Thunderbolt cables – time to get long! This means that once they get moving with production, SEI will be able to produce cords up to 100 feet in length rather than the approximately 10 foot length they’re limited to today. While today’s Thunderbolt cable requires metal components that limit their length to about the size of a desk, we’ll soon be rolling out across the whole room with optical builds.

The announcement from Sumitomo Electric Industries notes that they’ll be able to keep the full 10 Gbps speeds that the metal cables have shown. They also mention that even if the cables they’re producing are “tangled or pinched” up to 180 degrees, they’ll retain their signal fully. These cables have been assured to be as thin as the current standard metal-carrying Thunderbolt cables while their heads will be ever-so-slightly modified.

Each new Sumitomo Electric Industries optical Thunderbolt cable will have a 38mm connection head rather than the original metal cable’s 28mm. This and the fact that these new optical cables will not be able to power devices such as hard drives may be a hinderance for many hoping to continue their Thunderbolt access across their home, but for those already using separate power supplies, the game is on.

The Sumitomo Electric Industries team has made it clear that all Apple computers and devices shipped with standard Thunderbolt cable compatibility on the market thus far will be working with their new cords. They’ve not yet announced pricing or availability, but you can bet you’ll be seeing these cords before 2013 is ended (especially since they started shipping sample products back in April of 2012.)

[via Sumitomo Electric]

Thunderbolt cables go fiber optic (up to 100 feet long!) is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.