Minecraft now available for free on Raspberry Pi

Minecraft has been a big hit lately. The pixelated sandbox game has seen millions of downloads on multiple platforms, and today the game is seeing its release on the infamous Raspberry Pi hobbyist board. What's perhaps even better, is that the game will be free to all Raspberry Pi users, which will save you a couple of bucks if you planned to buy it on another platform.

The Raspberry Pi version of the game, called Minecraft: Pi Edition, takes a few steps to get going, of course. Users will need to download a program called Raspbian "wheezy," and then boot their RaspPi boards with the program. After that, all that stands in your way of hours of Minecraft play time are a few terminal commands.

There's actually a dedicated blog specifically for the Raspberry Pi version of the game, and that's where more details can be found if you need a little help getting the game going on your board. Of course, it takes a bit more effort than booting up a game on other platforms, but getting Minecraft for free seems like a good trade-off.

The Raspberry Pi is available for purchase in the US for $35, but it's unsurprisingly sold out, and it'll most likely stay that way for a while. However, if you don't already have a Raspberry Pi board, you can buy one now and at least get yourself on the waiting list while you can, since waiting until they come back in stock might not be the quickest option to obtaining one.