Xbox claims Minecraft Series X ratings ‘aren’t indicative’ of release plans

Microsoft has claimed that recent ratings board listings for an Xbox Series X|S version of Minecraft are “not indicative” of plans to release a current-gen version of the game.

Minecraft was recently classified for Xbox Series consoles by the US Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The game was also classified last month by USK, the video games rating board for Germany.

However, in a statement to VGC, Microsoft claimed the listings were part of standard approvals it regularly goes through with various rating boards.

“Given the number of platforms and geographies in which Minecraft is available, we periodically go through rating reviews and updates with different regional boards,” a spokesperson said. “This recent rating is not indicative of any new versions or platform support for Minecraft in the near future.”

Currently, only an Xbox One version of Minecraft is playable on Xbox Series X/S via backwards compatibility.

One feature that could potentially be supported in an optimised version of the game for Xbox Series consoles is ray tracing, which Microsoft has been teasing since before the platform’s launch in 2020.

Last March, developer Mojang inadvertently included prototype code for ray tracing support on Xbox consoles in a preview build available to Xbox Insiders, before quickly removing it.

“This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn’t signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles,” it said at the time.