Posted on 09/15/2014 7:59:44 PM PDT by jeannineinsd
Microsoft Corp. plans to spend $2.5 billion to buy what it called the most popular online game on Xbox, the building adventure title "Minecraft."
“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," Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, said in a statement Monday.
The purchase of the game maker Stockholm, Sweden-based Mojang is expected to close late this year. Compared with Microsoft's blockbuster "Halo" franchise, "Minecraft" should give the company a younger audience to which it could introduce other Microsoft products and services, analysts said. It also establishes another Microsoft-branded product on competing operating systems, which is among the chief goals for Nadella.
Addressing one of the main concerns of Minecraft players responding to rumors of a deal, Microsoft said it plans to continue making Minecraft available across devices, including Windows computers, Xbox, Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Sony PlayStation.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Does this mean it will finally run on Windows 8?
MS purchased Hotmail. Didn’t do so bad.
MS purchased WebTV. Ran it into the ground.
>> driven by a vibrant community we care deeply about
This is what is important today.
Society is SOOO screwed.
I can’t see Microsoft having bought the game that they could have just simply licensed unless they saw son other application to it.
MSNBC - a real ratings giant, eh?
They had $29 billion in cash not too long ago. My guess is they are looking to put some of it to use.
“
Oh, yeah...forgot about that one.
(Apparently, so did a LOT of people.)
Get ready for ads interrupting the activity.
And you call them fans? You mean they only are on Minecraft a little? When our little "fans" are not playing Minecraft they are watching YouTube videos about Minecraft.
I have to say though it is amazing how much work goes into building those worlds but I do wish they was stop the target practice on cute little pigs.
FYI: seems it’s a cash purchase, and one person owns the majority - just some guy who wrote a nifty little sandbox game, and had no billion-dollar aspirations.
With Minecraft, I am aware the members of the community have used the game to do things like fold proteins for medical research or even created a functional hard drive using Minecraft blocks.
There could be some very valuable collaborative applications that could be done through this form of gameplay.
Interesting!
They will ruin it faster than Mojang is.
Been playing it now for 2+ yrs.
Greatest game ever.
I run a server if anyone is interested.
My 10 yr old son and I play MC together, each from his own kindle fire. It’s actually a wonderful experience, at least in terms of video games. My son is very creative, and since MC is similar to 3-d Legos with unlimited resources, the creations possible are just awesome.
The whole experience- walking through someone’s imagination - is pretty cool. The first time I played it with him, it reminded me of the movie Tron for some reason!
I’m interested! My boy is a pretty hardcore fan- there was a time when every other sentence began with “On this one episode, Jack Frost miner...” (You’ll get this, but no one else will)
Send me the server info, have to see what a freeper mc world looks like!
My grandson plays this game all the time and of course likes us to play with him when we’re over. I find it so incredibly boring lol. If I were better at remembering how to use the crafting table and what collected items make what object it might be more interesting. As it stands right now, I just go along chopping at trees and blocks and maybe making a house and zombie characters in create mode, all while acting like I’m having some kind of fun lol...because I love my grandkid:)
Microsoft shouldn’t harm it, I hope. I believe this is just a purchase of a marketing channel for them for now.
I have a young fan of it in the house, purchased for Android. I am still a bit puzzled about its educational value but have noticed its popularity among 1st to 3rd grade kids.
It is more constructive as opposed to the destructiveness of Angry Birds. Kids build things with it and then set explosive charges to blast caves and surfaces and such, all for the purpose of creating something like a mine. But there is a great deal more.
I think it has a lot of potential for Microsoft to tap into these younger kids and help build their problem solving skills; at least I hope.
I reviewed Satya Nadella’s background and am impressed. Traditional family type of person. He was hired from the ranks, worked his way up. Good to see the old fashioned way of promotion and advancement is still alive in our USA.
I have also seen Microsoft’s Surface 3 Pro and am really impressed. For years I haven’t been positive about anything from Microsoft but maybe now they are turning a corner. I do wish though their XBox line would focus more on education and training rather than combat and sports.
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