Not sure if that's a Microsoft problem, or a general capitalism problem. None of the industry giants seem to understand art or games, just dollar signs

This.

This is just a general publicly traded company problem. Line must always go up, share value must always go up, C-suite bonuses must always go up

What do you mean? Don't you know that talented artist can be replaced by The Slop Generator and nobody will tell the difference? Upper management sure as hell can't!

We need more technical devs and artists in leading roles. Even then, the time change can lead to behavior and view changes. But they remain much more founded and knowledgeable after having practiced and worked the art than any business, law, or management person could ever be.

The other half is actually caring for the product and people.

I don't think the article said it was only a Microsoft problem.

You're right though, AAA execs don't understand the medium in the slightest.

Education problem.

Business students are indoctrinated into neoliberal concepts in post secondary.

When they graduate, they take up sales, marketing and management positions. They are blinded by greed and money is all they know.

Microsoft’s focus is entirely on business customers. Xbox doesn't align at all with any of their other business strategies.

I'm sure they'd love to sell it off, but it's like one of the biggest (if not the actual biggest) publishers in the world so I don't think there's any company that can afford to buy it.

They could split it up and sell it off in pieces, but they're not sure if Wall Street will reward them for it. So the best bet for them is to keep it as a buffer for layoffs whenever they need to raise their stock price.

The bullshit part it that our current economic system makes this the most logical path.

tl;dr: Instead of blaming Microsoft for doing layoffs, maybe we should be asking ourselves why we let 3 trillion dollar companies exist in the first place

Microsoft's ability to run everything that they touch into the ground is truly impressive.

Even if it's not their core business focus, I feel like having such a significant presence in a market has a lot of value for them. I don't think a sell off would be a good business move. Part of large org strategy is wide prevalence so you can't get around it. Onboard and catch into the ecosystem.

I don't know how they see it, though. Your view/arguments also make sense

If they understood dollar signs they would leave the art to the artists and just deal with management. But they don't understand that either.