In an interview with OXM sister publication Edge Magazine, 4J Studios Chief Technology Officer Paddy Burns reveals that the Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft, which his studio is overseeing, has spurred Microsoft to speed up their multi-week content certification process due to the constantly evolving nature of the world-building game. Translation? Patches...er, "game updates" can now get from developers' desks onto your Xbox 360 much faster than before.

"Microsoft knows that to do a similar thing that's on PC where they constantly update it, that's a very difficult thing to do on Xbox because you have to go through the full tests," Burns told Edge. "But they are quite keen to move towards that -- they do see it as the future, so I think we might be the first to do constant updates."

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For our part, we have to wonder if this policy change could finally lead to the floodgates being opened for massively multiplayer online games on Xbox 360. Though the reasons for the genre's absence on the platform are many, chief among them is the update process. MMOs require near-constant hotfixes, patches, and content updates, and to date Microsoft's glacial certification process has made MMO makers wary of hawking their wares on Xbox. We think this change in the testing procedures could finally mean that the likes of World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic could be plausible on 360. Or, more likely, the next-generation Xbox console.

Minecraft for XBLA, by the way, is due out this spring. Check out our hands-on preview here.

SOURCE: Minecraft prompts change in XBLA update process [Edge]