As reported by Kotaku:

[…] Since Major Nelson has publicized the numbers, the most popular game on Xbox Live—this is according to unique users playing the game while logging into the service, not just those playing multiplayer—has always been a first person shooter. Gears of War. Halo. And, for more than two years running, something from the Call of Duty series.

That came to an end this past week, when Minecraft‘s Xbox 360 edition emerged as the most played game on the Xbox 360. Back in May, the title—a console adaptation of the PC game, sold over Xbox Live Marketplace, now—finally broke Call of Duty‘s stranglehold on the top two of Xbox Live’s most active chart, something not even FIFA, the world’s most popular sports video game, could do.

In the week of Oct 15, Minecraft took No. 1.

And, of course, one of the very first comments is “One overrated game tops another.”

I have not booted up Minecraft since the beta ended – not out of hipster snobbery, but due to having gotten my 100+ hour fill already – so I cannot really speak to the game as it exists currently. But let me just say: good goddamn job. Although there have undoubtedly been indie game successes before this one, I think the gaming historians of the future will look back and catalog indie games as being BM (Before Minecraft) and AM (After Minecraft).

Going from 1-2 programmers to knocking Call of fucking Duty out of the number one slot on Xbox Live is a success story for the ages.

Kinda makes me wonder whether this topical (MMO) sandbox debate has some traction. Is Minecraft just an Angry Birds, e.g. hugely popular in a self-contained way with few derivatives? Or is it more of an iPad phenomenon, e.g indicative of consumers being introduced to something they did not realize they wanted (like tablet computers)?

Start your betting here.