Microsoft To Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang For $2.5 Billion

jawtheshark writes The rumors were true. Mojang, the company behind Minecraft, is being sold to Microsoft. Of course, the promise is to keep all products supported as they are. From the article: "Microsoft said it has agreed to buy Mojang AB, the Swedish video game company behind the hit Minecraft game, boosting its mobile efforts and cementing control of another hit title for its Xbox console. Minecraft, which has notched about 50 million copies sold, will be purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion, the company said in a statement. The move marks the tech giant's most ambitious video game purchase and the largest acquisition for Satya Nadella, its new chief executive. 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,' Nadella said in a statement."

Comments

Re:Microsoft can now kill Java

[UnknownSoldier]

That indeed could be the case. As pointed out on Reddit by gooneh ...

Minecraft is written in Java, and requires the Oracle (formerly Sun) JVM. Jokes and jabs aside, my guess is that MS wants to replace JVM with .NET under Minecraft, porting from Java to C#. All those 10-to-15 year olds playing Minecraft will be going to college and developing code in 5 or 10 years, and MS would naturally want them using their platform technology, so its a logical investment. Sadly, I would not be suprised to see support for Mac/Linux bit-rot and get dropped over a few years.