Minecraft Pocket Edition got its name because one of its devs was a big "Nintendo nerd" who wanted to pay homage to the Game Boy Pocket

Minecraft is one of those games that’s on just about every platform imaginable. Its mobile version used to adorably be called the Pocket Edition, and now we know why: one of its developers is a massive Nintendo nerd.

“A bit sad to see that the naming ‘Minecraft: Pocket Edition’ is completely gone nowadays, but understandable,” tweets Daniel Kaplan, a founding member of Mojang, co-founder of Coffee Stain, and current CEO of Keepsake Games.

“Why Minecraft was called Pocket Edition and not Mobile Edition on mobiles? Because I’m a Nintendo nerd, and it was a nod to Game Boy Pocket.”

I’ll be honest, this is the first I’m hearing of the Game Boy Pocket. Turns out it was a refinement of the original Game Boy that was smaller, lighter, and had a better display. I only started with the Game Boy Advance, but I did have a Color too.

Now, Minecraft’s mobile version is called the Bedrock Edition, so named because there are two versions of the game; the Java Edition runs on Java while the Bedrock Edition runs C++. This is why some farms work on one version of the game but not the other, the underlying code itself is different.

Nowadays, it’s quite common for mobile games to have the Pocket subheading. Pokemon TCG Pocket is the most recent example I can think of, and that game’s been consuming a lot of my waking hours this last month or so. I just can’t get enough of the card collecting, and now that I have a proper Darkrai and Weaville ex deck, I’m unstoppable in PvP.

If you’re looking for something similar to play, check out our list of all the best games like Minecraft you can get stuck into.

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