Minecraft still finds 300,000 new players a day, Xbox chief says
More than 300,000 people play Minecraft for the first time on an average day. It is a striking rate for a game that has been on sale for more than 17 years.
Xbox chief executive Asha Sharma shared the figure in a post on Twitter/X. The post followed Minecraft Live, the series' regular news showcase, and was reported by Eurogamer on 27 September 2026. Sharma also said in the same post that Minecraft has sold more than 425 million copies.
That sales total was built over more than 17 years on sale. It counts copies sold, a different measure from the daily count of first-time players. At 300,000 newcomers a day, the arithmetic points to more than two million first-time players in a typical week.
Sharma linked the number to a busy round of Minecraft Live announcements. They included Dungeons II, a new project under the spin-off name, and a new dimension for the main game. A dimension, in this game, is a separate world reached from inside the main map, with its own look and rules.
The line-up also promised new ways for creators to build. That matters because much of Minecraft runs on things players make, from adventure maps to mini-games. The game is updated long after launch, so fresh tools and updates keep older worlds feeling current.
There was hardware news too, with Minecraft on Nintendo Switch 2 among the announcements. That is Nintendo's current console, successor to the original Switch. Mojang also plans to launch Sound Effects Packs for the Minecraft Marketplace later this year, according to live coverage from IGN SEA.
The Marketplace is the in-game shop where players buy worlds, skins and extras. Much of it is made by independent creators, who earn a share of each sale. New sound packs would give those makers ready-made audio to dress up maps and modes.
For anyone picking up a phone for this story, that is the shape of it. Hundreds of thousands of beginners arrive each day. Millions of veterans get new places and projects. And the people who build for both get more to work with.
