Rumour: Microsoft about to buy Minecraft maker Mojang

If renowned financial news paper The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Microsoft is about to buy the Swedish Minecraft developer, Mojang, for a hefty price tag of $2 billion. The source behind this rumour also says the deal might be sealed as early as this week.

This would of course give Microsoft Minecraft as an exclusive. How that would affect the already released PlayStation versions remains to be seen. It would also give Microsoft the exclusive rights to any future games from Mojang.

Since this deal could be signed at any time according to the source, we'll likely know in the near future if this rumour is true or not. Now, Mojang isn't lacking for money. In fact, they're likely one of the most profitable developers in the world in terms their operating margin - so why would a buy out make sense then? It could signal an out for creator Markus "Notch" Persson, who removed himself from Minecraft development a while back and cancelled his follow up project 0x10c. We have no way of knowing whether WSJ's sources are reliable or not, but the fact that "Notch" who typically goes on Twitter to comment stuff within minutes, hasn't tweeted a thing about this could be seen as an indication that something is up.