Plus there's plenty of evidence that Microsoft hasn't been hands off across that time period. At the very least we've seen them cancel a Rare game and layoff a bunch of Rare staff because of it, The Initiative shut down for not meeting game development goals, 343 Industries stripped apart for low results versus expectations with Halo Infinite and the "new" Halo Studios is basically just a shell and an outsourcing venture in direct line with ActiVision's old Call of Duty tactics.
replyMicrosoft's executives lacked time to be hands-on with every acquisition. They were very involved in the decision process at the big studios, and the favoured children, but left the smaller studios without enough input.
replyI agree; I mostly just didn't want to spend time trying to cite a bunch of evidence of the alternate interpretation when it seemed sufficient to point out that they didn't really provide enough to form a conclusion one way or another.
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