Rumor: $2.5 Billion Microsoft/Mojang Deal Announcement on Monday?

UPDATE: Mojang on Monday confirmed the $2.5 billion deal.

Original story:
It appears that the Microsoft-Minecraft deal is a bit closer to reality than rumor. Or, rather, Microsoft-Mojang, the latter being the developer of the immensely popular open-world game.

According to a new report from Reuters, Microsoft is offering about $2.5 billion to acquire Mojang, and the deal between the two companies will be announced Monday. As for why, it's speculated that Microsoft might attempt to use Mojang—and Minecraft, specifically—to drum up more interest in the Windows Phone platform.

To some, however, both ships have already sailed. According to Joost van Dreunen, chief executive of research firm SuperData, Microsoft appears to be paying a significant amount of money to acquire a game that's popular, but certainly "not in its initial frenzy."

In other words, the game is just around three years old (for its full-release version, at least). Sure, people still play it plenty—Minecraft hit more than 100 million registered players in February of this year and 14.3 million copies sold, and that was just for the PC version of the game. Minecraft can also be found on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Android, and iOS, and there are even versions in the works for today's next-gen consoles and handhelds (sans Nintendo).

The big question is whether the game be able to achieve the same kind of success on Windows Phone—a platform that the game's creator, Markus Persson, described as "tiny" when asked why Mojang supported iOS and Android, but not Windows Phone.

"Minecraft itself has done very well on the iOS platform, but it's better on the iPad, the screen is bigger. I don't see why this could drive handset sales," Dreunen said, in an interview with Reuters.

It's also unclear just how Minecraft on Windows Phone might compel users to abandon their existing mobile platforms for Microsoft's. Minecraft would have to go through a pretty dramatic revamping for Windows Phone in order to feel compelling; otherwise, it's just one additional venue where one can get one's pixelated fix.

"It seems like Microsoft is looking at Mojang and Minecraft as a way to tap into this enormous cultural phenomenon. If you look at iOS, Minecraft has been a top-grossing game for quite some time, if Microsoft could on Windows phones give players a unique and compelling experience that you can't get on the other platforms, that could be a driver to sell devices to existing Minecraft fans," said Dave Bisceglia, chief executive of Tap Lab, in an interview with Reuters.

For more, see PCMag's review of Minecraft and the slideshow above. Also check out Minecraft: A Guide for 'Old' People.