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Hiku said:
ST.Tachyon said:

Because he is head of XBOX. Its his say when it comes to console specifications, games that are canceled or green lit and where these games will be released.

MS couldnt care less for XBOX since XBOX division doesnt even count for 5% of all money MS earn, even during their best years.

Well if Nadella tells Spencer that that the blue line needs to point up (growth) at the end of the fiscal year to make investors happy, and the $68.7 billion they spent on Activision Blizzard is putting them in the negative, while Phill may decide which studio gets shut etc, it's a pick your poison situation for him.
That aquisition was made by Microsoft. Not Xbox's division. And it's not far off from Microsofts entire net income of 2024.
So it affects Microsoft's bottom line directly.

Ideally it's a long term investment that will pay off for itself years down the line, but we live in a world where investors demand growth every single year, even if there is no growth to be had. So they artificially create it by firing employees, closing studios, and cancelling games, etc.

And even if those 68 Billion were on the Xbox division's books, I don't think it makes a difference, as Nadella would demand growth there as well. Although it would be impossible to make cuts to make up for that sum for Xbox, so that may be another reason for why it's on Microsofts books.

Around the time of Tango Gamework's closure, Jason Schreier reported from some Xbox/Microsoft employees that stated that Xbox is now pretty much majorly run by Nadella. At least the major decisions are, and then Phill decides how to get there.

I love how back in 2019 multiple users, including mods and site staff ardently defended Microsoft's acquisitions trying to compare a 100 billion purchase of major multiplatform titles to Sony or Nintendo's small-time purchases of long term 2nd party partners. Sony buying Insomniac, Santa Monica, etc. is nowhere near the same as MS buying Actiblizz and Bethesda, etc. And during that whole time I constantly claimed that it wasn't financially making money no matter what MS's books said. Now, 7 years later the writing is on the wall and those users, mods, and site staff are curiously absent from these forums. Hilarious.