It is stupid but i get their thought process. They surely know minecraft doesnt have nearly 2,5 billion worth of sales in it but the opportunity for sequels is the driving factor. The hard åart about that is the games nature of community created content. This makes people less inclined to buy a sequel as they have infinite entertainment from the first one. One of two things will happen though. Their platforms will get a big boost or the more likely which will see minecraft as a brand quickly fade into obscurity as people wont buy another system just for that. I think of it like any top mobile title such as clash of clans. If it wasnt on a platform with 100's of millions of users there is no way a mediocre game like that would be anything more than just about break even. Games like minecraft isnt popular because of its quality but because of accesibilty/price/content. These things are a perfect combination for when you already own a system that is compatible but it is really irrelevant when needing to persuade new consumers to your ecosystem. For that you would need 20-50 minecraft types of games in order to see an impact... I always like to compare these situations with league of legends. A game that i will guarentee hadnt been even half as successful had it not required an insanely low specification on your pc. Nearly every laptop can run this and is furthermore f2p but no one goes outright and buys a laptop to play league.  It is only something being considered after the pc purchase made for different reasons. 

Money isn't infinite. This is business. No smart businessman wants to waste money.

True but MS has thrown lots of money around before. 

Is there a source for this information ? Just curious, since i haven't read anywhere that Notch approached Microsoft. 

This call isnt from the XBOX division, its from MS itself. They arent doing this just for rights to the game.

People still aren't getting that Microsoft didn't buy one game, they bought a dev company that no doubt has projects we're not aware of.

Equally, they are failing to understand the concept of Microsoft purchasing something, as opposed to the Xbox Division purchasing something. This is not solely about Xbox.

Does that automatically mean the acquisition was worth it? Only time will tell that. But for the most part, people are missing the point.

^

As I said, people are simply missing the point. Honestly, this sounds like you explictely acknowledge that you don't have any of the details of the sale, but refuse to believe there could be value in it.

LOL What do you expect Microsoft to do to beat the competition, make games themselves? Acquisitions should be expected with every generation on Microsofts part.

What do you think about the possibility that Mojang came up with some sort of algorithm or programming method, or possibly some sort of dev tool or method outside of gaming? Ever watch the show Silicon Valley? Its about a programmer that comes up with a fascinating new algorithm that greatly improves compression on a network, or something like that, been awhile since I last watched it(reminds me I need to catch up). So there was a huge bidding war between a bunch of Tech companies over it. Perhaps that is what happened here? Maybe it was their programming and methods they were after like their code for procedural generation? Or perhaps it was something with their network? Perhaps MS thinks thinks procedural generation is a big part of the future of gaming and maybe they have ideas for it outside of gaming. Perhaps that would be worth 2.5b to them and not just the company or hand full of people. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-09/microsoft-said-near-2-billion-deal-for-minecraft-maker.html

"The deal came together after Mojang founder Markus Persson reached out to Microsoft a few months ago, based on a positive working relationship on Minecraft for Xbox, said the person familiar with Microsoft."