Minecraft is a very popular game on both the PC and consoles, plus last we checked, it had a huge appeal amongst Xbox gamers as well and has since managed to sell over 10 million copies on the Xbox 360, but could this be reason enough for Microsoft to potentially consider purchasing the developers behind the game?
Well according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, it seems that Microsoft is reportedly close to inking a deal with Mojang, the developers of Minecraft, where they would purchase the entire company for around $2 billion. This comes as a surprise as Mojang’s founder, Markus “Notch” Persson has remained largely indie and has tended to avoid outside influences.
In fact you might recall how he publicly announced that the would be cancelling Minecraft for the Oculus Rift after he found out that Facebook would be acquiring both the technology and the company. Unsurprisingly both Microsoft and Mojang have declined to comment on the deal, but as the WSJ reports, it is said to be close to being finalized so we could hear about it soon.
According to Bloomberg reporter, Dina Bass, she has confirmed that she has heard similar rumblings as well, although in her case she reports that should the deal go through, Minecraft is expected to remain a cross-platform game, so PlayStation gamers can rest assured knowing that Microsoft won’t be making it a platform exclusive anytime soon.