Phil Spencer of Xbox tweets that Mojang has now been fully taken over by Microsoft, who paid out for the former at the tune of $2.5 billion (£15.77bn). He says:

“It’s official, today we welcome Mojang to the Microsoft Studios family. We're excited for the possibilities ahead with the Minecraft community.”

Microsoft has vowed to provide continued support for the various versions of Minecraft across different platforms such as iOS, Android and Playstation.

Markus Persson the creator of Minecraft is no longer with the company as part of the acquisition deal. He says that "it’s not about the money, it’s about my sanity” and adds “I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world."

“I can’t be responsible for something this big. In one sense, it belongs to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it’s belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.”