It does make plenty of sense, as NetEase has a major Western-gaming reputation already courtesy of its partnership with game makers Blizzard. In fact, NetEase handles Chinese publishing duties at the moment when it comes to all of the major video games from Blizzard, and will also soon publish Overwatch. Well, if Microsoft were to work with NetEase, then we can more or less see Minecraft expand its borders, and with the Internet cafe culture being pretty big over there, who knows how much more revenue can Minecraft pull in with a new pool of gamers?
This particular move does lend credence to the ancient words that whenever there is a will, there is a way. After all, Microsoft needs to recoup some of the $2 billion plus it spent on acquiring Mojang.