Microsoft agrees to $2.5-billion deal to purchase ‘Minecraft’
Microsoft Corp. plans to spend $2.5 billion to buy what it called the most popular online game on Xbox, the building adventure title “Minecraft.”
“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,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in a statement Monday.
The purchase of the game maker Stockholm, Sweden-based Mojang is expected to close late this year. Compared with Microsoft’s blockbuster “Halo” franchise, “Minecraft” should give the company a younger audience to which it could introduce other Microsoft products and services, analysts said. It also establishes another Microsoft-branded product on competing operating systems, which is among the chief goals for Nadella.
Addressing one of the main concerns of Minecraft players responding to rumors of a deal, Microsoft said it plans to continue making Minecraft available across devices, including Windows computers, Xbox, Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Sony PlayStation.
The nearly 3-year-old game has recorded more than 100 million downloads on PCs alone, Microsoft said. Players in the virtual world of Minecraft construct objects and structures using blocks. The game can be played alone or with others.
People spent 2 billion hours playing Minecraft on the Xbox 360 during the past two years, according to Microsoft.
Minecraft’s creator Markus Persson said that he’s leaving Mojang effective Monday because he never wanted to create a blockbuster game. Though the spotlight was flattering, Persson said he was more interested in smaller projects. Some other company executives also don’t plan to join Microsoft.
“Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I can’t be responsible for something this big,” he said in a statement. “In one sense, it belongs to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it’s belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.”
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