We don't even know if this is really happening yet. If it's true, they have large expectations for those 2 other games Mojang are publishing. The Card game could be very lucrative if handled well and can make back a large chuck of this 2 Billion over time.

Because games are risky ventures. And individual release has very short cashflow lifespan whereas other investments bring in a consistent return for a long period of time.

AAA games of course! I'm not saying this because I hate Minecraft or something!

Capcom cost 2.5B at the moment to buy. Thas a bunch of IPs that generally sell well like RE, monster hunter, street fighter and many others. They could buy 51% for 1.275B and have a bunch of money left over with a bunch of great IP's. With this I see MS closing the xbox department. Wasent Phil Spencer suposed to be a gamer that understood the buisness and all that shit? Your mesia turned out to be the devil in desguise.

AAA games of course! And I AM saying this because I DO hate Minecraft.

AAA games, obviously. $2B on Minecraft is such a waste!

People are looking at this as a major decision of Microsoft games division. Microsoft corp is buying the Minecraft IP. It has a lot more to do with merchandising(TV,Movies, Clothing, Books, Posters, Toys) than it does gaming. I dont know if anyone has been in a big box store in a while but there is Minecraft shit all over the place.

The sum is the only reason I'm kinda doubting this rumor. Still... Minecraft is the biggest gaming phenomenon in years, and the train doesn't seem to be slowing in the slightest, so there's a huge amount of value there.

That said, it's not as simple as the title question says. MS couldn't get 20 new AAA games from anywhere with $2 billion because they don't have the manpower themselves and getting so many from other sources would be very difficult. And what IPs would they be? When would they get them? Nope, too difficult.

EDIT: And just for the record, if it was possible, I'd say 20 new AAA games for sure. I'm just pointing out why it's not really a fair comparison.

It was a big flop but that cost also included the canceled Saturn version and Shenmue 2.

Not sure if you guys are dumb or just trolling... Microsoft couldn't give shit about minecraft as a game IP and that is not what they paid 2 billion for.

When they want is people who play Minecraft using microsoft accounts, which leads to microsoft services. Minecraft is everywhere, on every platform and once this deal goes through, in order to play it on any console you will need to log in with a microsoft account. Buying minecraft is a gateway for them to get iOS, Android, PS3, PS4 users to create microsoft accounts and utilize other microsoft services.

Facebook paid something like 14 billion for WhatsApp for this exact same reason.