Microsoft has started the migration of Minecraft from Amazon Web Services to Azure. A few can surprise considering that Microsoft owns its developer and that Amazon is its main rival in the cloud.
The battle for dominance of cloud services is colossal and the industry leader, Amazon Web Services, has grown into a giant after exponential growth in the last decade to become the most successful cloud infrastructure company on the planet. AWS could easily pass as a leading Fortune company regardless of its parent Amazon, in the face of spectacular revenue and profit figures.
Microsoft has managed to gain ground in recent years with Azure and the service has become one of the company’s flagship products, reducing its dependence on Windows and Office, the components of which increasingly use the Microsoft cloud.
Obviously, Microsoft is not going to give anything to Amazon and incidentally aims to save costs. The software giant acquired the game developer Mojang Studios in 2014 and intends to continue monetizing the large investment that involved an operation valued at over $ 2 billion.
Minecraft to Azure migration was sung. The change marks a significant move for Mojang, which has been using AWS since 2014 to offer a subscription service called Realms in Minecraft. Basically, it allows users to quickly set up private spaces where they can play with friends.
A Microsoft representative confirmed to CNBC the strategy: “Mojang Studios has used AWS in the past, but we have been migrating all cloud services to Azure for the past few years”. The spokesperson also clarified why they have taken so long to do so: “It would be easy for a large organization to come in and say, ‘Hey, let’s show you how it’s done. Let’s get you out of this Java code. We are going to migrate your game to C. We are going to remove it from Amazon Web Services and take it to Azure, but it is important to realize that the conditions that Minecraft created, how it arose, are not easy to recreate in a more corporate structure ».
Minecraft long ago became the world’s best-selling game in the last decade beating Grand Theft Auto V. With data from last May, Mojang has sold more than 200 million copies and more than 126 million people play it every month. A great success and it has rope for a while: it is still one of the games that generates the most videos and reproductions on portals like YouTube and Twitch, and prepares releases like Minecraft Dungeons.
Microsoft made a good investment and it’s time to bring the game to its cloud platform. The project to include Minecraft in Azure will be completed by the end of 2020. At the user level, we should not notice any changes when playing it or subscribing to its services.
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