Minecraft's Xbox 360 outing playable at MineCon

Microsoft shocked the gaming community when it took time out of its highly-publicized E3 presentation to show a trailer for an Xbox 360 port of the popular indie PC hit Minecraft. Since then little has come out about the game, but in just a few short weeks we should know much, much more. Mojang has confirmed that Minecraft's Xbox 360 outing will be playable at this year's Minecraft convention: MineCon...

"We are thrilled to announce that MineCon attendees will have the opportunity to play Minecraft on Xbox 360 months before the public release!" Mojang revealed on its official website. "Minecraft for Xbox 360 is currently in heavy development and we are very happy with the progress."

They also revealed that Microsoft is joining Mojang in sponsoring the convention, proving the publisher's support for the small studio. It's obvious that they're confident in the success of the Xbox 360 version of the game, likely fueled by the absurd popularity of Xbox Live Indie titles that blatantly rip-off Minecraft's style.

Above: Want to see a town explode in the PC version of Minecraft? Of course you do!

MineCon is set to kick off on November 18-19 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we're really interested in seeing how it goes. The success of Minecraft is inspiring, not just to gamers, but to the indie game community as well. If a simple looking, block-based mining game can go from nothing to big enough to launch a successful convention in only two years, surely other developers will start experimenting with more ambitious indie titles, right?

Minecraft for the Xbox 360 is due out early next year for use with both the regular Xbox 360 controller and the Kinect. Yes, Minecraft works with Kinect. We can't wait to see how that works.