Rumour confirmed: Microsoft Purchase Minecraft for $2.5B (Post#122)

Notch, now a billionaire, uses some of that dough to bankroll many new games that may otherwise not exist or fail to get enough capital.

More likely ... Notch now sick of the internet and the whining shit-storm after the sale retreats to his yacht to tour tropical islands with lots of classy whores.
 
Glad they are not trying to turn it into an exclusive. Sounds like it will remain on all of the platforms where it is available now.
 
Microsoft just went 3rd party.

Nadella wouldnt never pay 2.5B for Take2/Rockstar as Xbox exclusive but has for Mojang to continue crossplatform. Mobile gaming > Xbox at microsoft
 
Microsoft just went 3rd party.

Nadella wouldnt never pay 2.5B for Take2/Rockstar as Xbox exclusive but has for Mojang to continue crossplatform. Mobile gaming > Xbox at microsoft

They have a bunch of games that release on different platforms already. So don't see the problem.


Anyway I bet this is the start of them buying up studios
 
They have a bunch of games that release on different platforms already. So don't see the problem.


Anyway I bet this is the start of them buying up studios

If this price is an indicator of what it costs to buy a new studio nowadays, I would say you are wrong. Companies with larger revenues will have a sticker price that would make it impossible to buy them.
 
The 3 founders are also confirmed to not coming to Microsoft. This wasn't a purchase for talent, but IP.

Here are the official posts...

http://news.xbox.com/2014/09/games-minecraft-to-join-microsoft

https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/

Tommy McClain

From the outside looking in, you have no idea what the talent level of the other employees are. They could have picked up a bunch of top notch talents. That said, at a $2.5 billion price tag, it's pretty obvious they were paying for the product and the IP, and the people involved is just a drop in the bucket.
 
Nuts. Completely nuts. And the press statement still doesn't make it clear why they bought it. They talk if adding diversity to their platforms but their only platform without Minecraft is RT and I don't see that being big in the future.

This like Brewster's Millions with a guy with a lot of t-shirts.

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner.
 
From the outside looking in, you have no idea what the talent level of the other employees are. They could have picked up a bunch of top notch talents.

True, you have a point.

BTW, this could be a defensive move. To prevent their competitors from purchasing the company.

Tommy McClain
 
Nice! I really like the new gaming focused MS...investing in games and gaming devs is exactly what I want from them :)
Imagine what $2.5 billion could have bought in the console space though. When it comes to games, this really wasn't a good economy. However, it's not about games AFAICS. Read the Mojang post and it shows that Minecraft has grown beyond the scope for them to handle, and it needed more. So I think the future is persistent worlds on the cloud, which is right up MS's alley. Minecraft will be a platform, not a game. It's impact on XB1 is likely zip, and if it was XB1 that MS were concerned about, they could have bought way more talent and exclusives. They could have bought 5x Destiny, and that's given the ten year investment planned. They could have paid for 10 never-before-seen $200 million budget blockbuster titles and still had change from $2.5B. They could have sold X1 at $300 with a massive loss leader and probably come out on top.
 
This move makes sense in the nadella age, Minecraft runs almost everywhere.

This is not about Xbox, is about Ms as a company trying to make software for every device/os and bringing synergies to other divisions like its cloud service.

Now, if its able to milk those customers/user like google remains to be seen




 
an interesting point made on Twitter

Robert Boyd : "To anyone thinking $2.5 bil for Minecraft was too much, think of it this way - this is as close to buying the Pokemon IP as you can get."


I can voutch that many of my little nephews and nieces ranging from 8 till teens play this game ...

Good on MS for coming to Notche's side and buying him and the other founders out.. Clearly it sounded like he wanted out and was happy to go with MS.... that is all!
 
my nephew is 5 and he plays this more than any Nintendo game on his 3ds. He takes his dell venue pro and will play for hours if we let him.

I think its more than pokemon. This is pokemon combined with legos
 
Given what they have tried with xbox one games, this will have pretty much all task monetized in some way and may offer a subscription service.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Sony versions, as at present they are published by Sony and I cannot see that continuing. Would Sony allow MS into their approved publishers list? (If such a thing exists)

A few points been raised about kids loving it, which is certainly true, they don't however buy things. They watch endless youtube videos of people with the DLC but they have no real interest in it themselves, they are happy with what you get for the entry fee for the most part.

Any drastic changes could kill the franchise so whatever Microsoft do, could be very risky.
 
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They could have paid for 10 never-before-seen $200 million budget blockbuster titles and still had change from $2.5B. They could have sold X1 at $300 with a massive loss leader and probably come out on top.
Probably nope to both of them. These will affect their US balance sheets because they will come directly out of the budgets of XBOX division and then there will be greater calls and pressure from analysts (and probably internally) to dump the division. Instead this falls under a strategic acquisition target that won't have long term effects on the balance sheets and probably isn't even going against XBOX budgets. This has easy fits with the new Nadella vision and can have tangential benefits to XBOX.

So, no, just because they spent $2.5B on this doesn't mean they can do any of the things you spoke about. As I type this I realise what a smart move this is by Phil, because I think he's just picked up an asset that will, tangentially, help his division, but likely selling it internally as a strategic imperative and not impacting his budgets at all.
 
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