Unless you’ve been living under a rock, which is quite possible for Minecraft players, you are no doubt aware of the Xbox 360 version of the seminal indie game that launched this week. The $20 Xbox Live Arcade game sought to emulate the original PC hit and apparently it has done so at least in terms of sales.

Markus “Notch” Persson, head of Mojang and creator of Minecraft, reported on Twitter that the Xbox 360 version of the game became profitable within the first hour of being on sale. I have no idea how much money went behind the Xbox 360 port of the title, but I do know that it has been in development for about a year now. Turning a profit that quickly is absolutely ridiculous.

Well then. Saw the official sales numbers for the first 24 hours of Minecraft Xbox 360, and it’s very, very good. Profitable in an hour.

— Markus Persson (@notch) May 10, 2012

Of course, we probably shouldn’t be surprised considering that the top games on the Xbox Live Indie Games Channel are all Minecraft clones. Once people were able to get the real thing, they all flocked to it like creepers going after a newly built house.

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition was ported by master porting studio 4J Studios whose previous work includes the excellent XBLA ports of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. It has minor differences from the PC version that are inherent to the limited capability of consoles such as smaller world maps and a simplified crafting menu.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft will eventually see all the updates that are now in the PC version of Minecraft including mods and texture packs. This will all be updated at a pace much faster than other games as 4J Studios confirmed that Microsoft is allowing Minecraft to sidestep the patch certification process.

One potential problem that Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition has run into is in regards to its split-screen multiplayer mode according to Kotaku. It was heralded as a feature that gave a massive boost to the console version of the game, but it was found out that only HDTVs with either a component or HDMI connection could take advantage of this feature.

Regardless, it sounds like Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition is an excellent addition to the Minecraft legacy. Don’t look forward to the game coming out on other consoles though. Notch has said that the Xbox 360 is going to be the exclusive home for the console version.

[h/t: TheSixthAxis]