Microsoft-Controlled Media With Embargo and Press Operatives
Notice the time they published this (9PM on Friday):
Within a few minutes face-saving pieces were pushed with a false, deflecting narrative (clearly coordinated in advance with an embargo set in place under secretly-negotiated conditions) regarding layoffs.
Microsoft rushed (albeit upfront) to trot out operatives like Todd Bishop to go ahead with phony narratives like, "DEFINITELY NOT LAYOFFS!!"
Don't focus on what actually happened: we tossed our leaders under the bus.
The reality is, they toss XBox in a bucket of slop ("CoreAI" [1, 2] is a shell for things that lose a ton of money and are presented to shareholders as "investment in the future").
This won't be the last example of media manipulation for narrative control or face-saving "damage control". Microsoft is clearly paranoid about any actual journalism; it has long "flooded the zone" with parrots and PR fluff. █