Microsoft will acquire Mojang, the Stockholm-based game developer, and the company’s Minecraft franchise, for $2.5 billion.
The Mojang team will join Microsoft Studios, which includes the studios behind franchises “Halo,” “Forza,” “Fable” and more.
Microsoft’s investments in cloud and mobile technologies will enable Minecraft players to benefit from richer and faster worlds, more powerful development tools, and more opportunities to connect across the Minecraft community.
Minecraft with more than 100 million downloads, on PC alone is one of the top PC games of all time, the most popular online game on Xbox, and the top paid app for iOS and Android in the US.
The Minecraft community played for more than 2 billion hours on Xbox 360 alone in the past two years.
Nearly 90 percent of Minecraft paid customers on the PC have signed in within the past 12 months.
Carl Manneh, CEO, Mojang, said: “As the founders move on to start new projects, we believe the high level of creativity from the community will continue the game’s success far into the future.”
Microsoft said Minecraft will be available across all the platforms such as PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.
editor@infotechlead.com
