When you first dive into the world of Minecraft world seeds, you might be a little confused. There are lots of metrics to understand and lots of issues that can pop up that might prevent the seed from working for you. Before you get started, you need to know how the seed system works in the first place.
How worlds are generated is a topic for a different day, what I want to highlight here is the differences between seeds on different versions and platforms. For example, someone might say that seed 12345 is amazing. You load it up and find that it is completely different to what was advertised. Why does this happen?
The Same Seed ID Doesn’t Work On Every Platform
If someone playing the PC version, makes a post about a great seed, it will not work on the pocket edition. It won’t work on the console versions either. Each platform/system has its own version of the game. Some of them are the same underlying engine and some are not. Depending on the version, the seeds might not be cross-compatible. Meaning you can’t use all Minecraft seeds on different platforms.
The table below will detail how the system works. This can be used a quick lookup for those who are new to all of this and want to know whether a seed you have found will work with the system you are using.
Reading left to right: Other platforms that this seed works on. I.e. PlayStation 4 seeds work on the PS4 and Xbox One.
Reading top to bottom: Seeds that can be used on this platform. I.E. The Xbox One can use seeds from the PS3, PS4 and Xbox 360.
Platforms | PC | PS4 | PS3 | Xbox One | Xbox 360 | Pocket Edition |
PC | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
PlayStation 4 | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
PlayStation 3 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Xbox One | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Xbox 360 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Pocket Edition | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Assuming the table above-made sense to you, you will now understand how seeds work cross-platform. If it made no sense, I’ll try to elaborate further.
The console edition is used on all games consoles. The game IS the same across the systems, but there are limitations on the older systems. If you find a seed on the PS3 it should work on the PS4 if you use classic mode. If you find a seed on classic mode in the PS4 it should work on the PS3. However, since the newer systems are more powerful, there is the option to create larger worlds on the PS4 and Xbox One. These seeds will not work on the previous generation of systems.
Minecraft java edition on PC can only use seeds from other PC versions of the game and the same goes for the pocket edition. You will not be able to use any seeds from the console edition. The Nintendo Switch version of the game is likely to conform to the same standards as the Xbox One and PS4. I will update this guide once I have more information on how it works.
The Differences Between Console Editions
Console edition is used to cover a number of different gaming systems. They all appear to be based on the same engine but do not all work the same. There are limitations with the previous generation of games consoles (360 and ps3) that cause a considerably smaller world to be generated than the newer systems.
If you build a seed on the PS4 using a very large world size, it won’t generate the same world on the PS3 or Xbox 360. The newer game versions come with several world generation configurations that you can specify before you start. Using classic mode, will emulate the process that the older generation of consoles used. This is why the PS4 and Xbox One are capable of using seeds from the older systems, but the older systems are not always capable of using the seeds from a newer system.
