Rumors began circulating last week and today Microsoft made it official. The Redmond WA giant will purchase Mojang, the creators of the hit Minecraft for $2.5 billion.
Microsoft Head of Xbox Phil Spencer made the announcement today via a video and blog post on the Xbox website.
Spencer made a specific reference as to whether or not Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang would spell exclusivity for Minecraft on Microsoft platforms;
“At Microsoft, we believe in the power of content to unite people. Minecraft adds diversity to our game portfolio and helps us reach new gamers across multiple platforms. Gaming is the top activity across devices and we see great potential to continue to grow the Minecraft community and nurture the franchise. That is why we plan to continue to make Minecraft available across platforms – including iOS, Android and PlayStation, in addition to Xbox and PC.”
Mojang also provided their fans a lengthy post on their website to answer some of the most common questions they had been receiving. Most notable was the revelation that the Mojang team never intended Minecraft to become as big of a sensation that it has, and that company founder Markus (Notch) Persson did not want the responsibility of running such a large franchise, preferring to go back to working on smaller projects.
“As you might already know, Notch is the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang. He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle. The only option was to sell Mojang. He’ll continue to do cool stuff though. Don’t worry about that.”
Would a giant user created Pikachu cause legal issues now that Microsoft owns Minecraft? Time will tell…
Notch elaborated further on his own website, stating that he did not want to become a symbol and that his decision was not based on money; “It’s about my sanity”.
We will have to wait and see in the coming months just what Microsoft’s purchase of the Minecraft developer means for the future of the franchise.
In the meantime, tell us what you think about the sale in the comments section below.
Written by The Watchman
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