It is all so funny. Some management tools at M$ generated glorious completely spurious spreadsheets how that investment of $2.5 was going to generate huge returns. Now those people who created those spreadsheets just dumped the spreadsheets and the hot potatoes on others and said make it work because that spreadsheets says it can work. This leaves those poor victims with coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas to make it work, even though, in their hearts of hearts, they know it is absolutely impossible. Of course the more crazy ideas they come up with, desperate to generate that return on an investment, most players are now getting bored with, the worse it makes that investment look. Next will come putting the squeeze on players to generate more income and which inevitably drives them away. Then of course the biggest threat to mine craft, 'LEGO'. The huge advantages with LEGO as a competitor for Minecraft, is LEGOs merchandising is already rock solid and of course if they do completely custom sets, what you build in a virtually lego world, they can sell you as a package and LEGO has a whole range of games and media content.
This is I believe that M$ might have been hoping for mine craft, only problem is mine craft in the real world is a great big zero and it has a huge existing competitor. M$ should really have bought or partnered with LEGO, that was the more sound and logical choice.