First, let me start by saying that State of Decay 2 is a big game. It's going to sell millions of copies, more than some "AAA" games.
Second, this all hinges on something the head of first party publishing for Microsoft but we don't know exactly what she meant. Yeah, we can speculate but it's very possible that she wasn't talking about games in early development. In fact, that would be my guess. She runs publishing, not first party development as a whole, so she might have little to do with games that aren't nearing the marketing stage. Just speculation but, really, who knows?
Finally, people need to stop attacking the topic. Based on a statement from a Microsoft executive, speculation on this subject is valid. The intentions of the OP might be open to interpretation, of course, but there is nothing wrong with the topic.
