According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is in “serious discussions” in regards to the purchase of Mojang, the developer of the ridiculously popular game Minecraft. They cite a “person with knowledge of the matter” but do not give a name or any specific position the person might hold, so take this as a rumor for now. However, coming from The Wall Street Journal gives it a certain amount of credence.
Microsoft is in “serious discussions” in regards to the purchase of Mojang, the developer of the popular game Minecraft
According to the report the deal would be calued at over $2 billion. This might seem like a large amount for a company who has only produced one popular game, but when the game is on its way to becoming the best selling game of all time it makes sense. However, the sale would go against the usual policy of Mojang and its founder Markus “Notch” Persson. When Minecraft was first being created Notch decided to remain an independent developer, only approaching the bigger companies to put his game onto their system once it had achieved major success on its own.
The big question would be what this purchase would have on the Playstation versions of Minecraft. Despite beginning life on the PC, Minecraft has actually sold better on consoles, especially the Xbox 360 which had it exclusively for a while after launch. However, both Minecraft: Playstation 4 Edition and Minecraft: Xbox One Edition are currently out and available for gamers to purchase. Presumably a contract was signed, allowing the game to exist on Sony’s consoles for at least a certain amount of time, but if not this would be a major blow. To have Minecraft exclusive to Xbox 360 and Xbox One would be a huge boost for the system which has been lagging behind Playstation in terms of sales since the start of the new generation.
