Microsoft Will Buy Minecraft for 2.5 Billion

Redmond Tech giant Microsoft will purchase the very popular multiplatform game Minecraft for a whooping 2.5 billion dollars. Mojang, the company that developed the popular game created a “Lego Like” virtual player game that has been downloaded 100 million times since it launched in 2009. It is a played across PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation and was just recently released to Xbox One. Microsoft said it would continue to make Minecraft available across all current platforms.

"Minecraft is more than a great game franchise it is an open world platform, driven by a vibrant community we care deeply about, and rich with new opportunities for that community and for Microsoft," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

The deal is set to close by the end of the year 2014 and Microsoft is already thinking that their purchase of Mojang and Minecraft will break even in 2015.

We believe the acquisition of the ubiquitous Minecraft game (almost 54 million copies sold) strategically makes sense as Microsoft looks for ways to drive users toward its nascent mobile hardware business, where it can leverage and cross-sell a wide range of its higher-margin software (e.g., Office 365, Windows)," FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said in a client note.

What does the Mobility Digest team think about it?:

Matt: Waste of money.

Jimski: I hear it’s to keep them out of the hands of Apple and Google, but still a lot of money.  If

Ram: Well, from the point of game it is a waste. But think like this, the franchise gets money from LEGO, Movies etc., and the infrastructure, if they could move it to Azure from AWS, and build on Minecraft and bring variations or continue saga like Halo instead of just Candy Crush, Farmville or Angry Birds, I think they’ve a winner. But given Microsoft’s Marketing Buttheadness, I think

So what do you think? Would love to get your comments.

[source]