Oh please, not one 1.8! It's great and all, but there are some really bad bugs right now. ;u;

I am actually kinda optimistic, and maybe, it will turn out like Terraria. (I think they made a deal with microsoft...)
I know, that from this minecraft has lost a big part of the community: The very involved and personal developers; something we are not likely to see from a large company.
However, with this deal, minecraft now has more resources available to it, so we may see exciting new developments.
As far as how this will actually affect the game, I think we can only wait and see. I am sure microsoft is going to try the best it can to not screw this up because that would hurt their company
really bad, so there
shouldn't be any cataclysmic happenings. XD
It is a sad thing though that we lost the developers; they were a great part of the community.