This is absolutely false.
It was on the front page as a top story on Yahoo.com
If you don't think this was a publicity nightmare for Microsoft, you have another thing coming.
Well I have absolutely nothing coming because I have no dog in this fight, but okay. You may notice in the bolded that I said
"from what I remember", which isn't much as I paid very little attention to the whole situation as I thought it was rather pointless. If the story was hitting the front pages around the globe, then I apologize, I'm mistaken.
I don't really want to cover the same ground because at this stage in the game people have made up their minds. But all this hubbub erupted over a comment,
"Deal with it". And a daft joke/comment, the implication of which was;
if the area you live in has poor internet, then it's a crappy area. I just found it hard to believe that people could be so easily offended. And, for what it's worth -- not much -- I don't believe they were. Places like GAF attract a certain type of person, a lot of these people obviously feel very passionately about their hobby. But at the same time, I think many have a tendency to take things to heights they should never really reach.
The rest of the backlash was in regard to rumors of the always-online state of the next Xbox, which as I already said, had no real weight behind it. People were getting super bummed out over it all and completely overreacting instead of just waiting to see what Microsoft actually announce or put out. Perhaps worth noting, rumors have since come to light, that if true, make much of what people were complaining about a giant waste of time. If that turns out to be the case, what was the point in most of this?
I don't think anything the guy said -- be it his comments or hints towards the next Xbox -- warranted the reaction it garnered. I do think he would of done well to say nothing or just quit while he was ahead. And I understand why a company like Microsoft would be strict in regard to the things their staff might say via social media. But this whole thing had ended up being completely blown out of proportion, and unfortunately, a guy has lost his job over it. That makes some people happy, and they feel justice was served. That's fine. For me, the whole situation was much to do about nothing. Ultimately, I feel it had more to do with people's gripes about the possible features of a gaming console than anything that was actually said. And if we put things in to perspective, it is, at the end of the day, just a console.
That's just my opinion and I don't expect any of the aggrieved to agree with me. It is what it is.