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[Felessan]

Activision was making billions of dollars a year. They could of easily expanded... but they chose not too. They even chose stop development of successful franchises like Crash Bandicoot.

You can't really expand "easily" - there is a cap on management capacity after that efficiency of management goes down.
It's actually hard to be a big company because it requires a number of internal control processes that keep company structurally coherent and provide visibility and control for upper management.
The bad part of this control structures - they are rigid. Not a best place for creativity. Exactly current MS problem.

To make it work Kotick should have split Activision into 2 companies and manage them separately, one for CoD and one for other games, but it's a stress for upper management, they already have 3 companies too look after and probably Kotick didn't see "other games" company significant enough to put efforts into, he probably already was "too old for this shit" to grow company from low ground. Or maybe he didn't have good management team for it anymore as ATVI transformed into live service powerhouse across all it's divisions and run live service games is different than making SP games.

It's quite clear that Kotick with his experience, insight and focus on business prioritized gaas over SP games as former are the future and more profitable. And it's not like only Activision transitioned, Blizzard now has 3 gaas (WoW, OW, Hearthstone), 1 semi-gaas (Diablo) and zero SP games, remasters excluded, for like a decade already.

 

[Xbox 360 slim]

In the week that Microsoft announced “Muse”, a tool that allows them to generate gameplay using AI, I think Kotick’s words are very poignant.

Bobby should be happy MS was there with the 360, COD would not be as big as it was, without Xbox live.

 

[Freelance Yakuza]

Imagine going to a restaurant, ordering food, expecting that food to be made by someone who loves cooking and sharing that with people, and instead being served a big mac combo.

Going to a concert, expecting to hear music from people who love music, who love creating music and sharing with people, and having to listen to whatever stolen garbage MusicAgent spat out.

These people don't care about the art and science of making games. Or the cultural relevance of video games. And then Phil, typical Phil Spencer, fucking lies about how it's going to help with game preservation.

Yes, it's a business, they're in it to turn a profit, nothing wrong with that. But at least fucking love the business you're in.

Microsoft instance on videogame business is like: I heard people are buying "Game X". I want you to make something similar

 

[fart town usa]

Xbox was pretty baller for the OG System, as well as the 360. The OG 360 was a flaming piece of shit though (hardware).

I honestly don't think they are as bad as people make them out to be, when it comes to output, compared to Sony. Xbox releases more technical turds, wheras Sony has polish but their output this gen is largely rubbish. XBOX/MS as a whole are the devil though, truly horrible company. Sony just needs to get their head out of their ass, they have no valid excuse to be operating the way they are.

 

[Sonik]

Microsoft has offered nothing to gaming other than shady tactics on how to fleece console players (Xbox Live subscription for example) that other companies copied making gaming worse and monopolistic practices of throwing billions until they take over which thankfully didn't work. Xbox Pass is the worst of it, they tried a Netflix style monopolistic takeover which miserably failed despite the tens of billions they wasted. I can't remember a single studio they bought that didn't become worse after a few years of them owning it