Again, folks are getting way too focused on NPD when that just started out as an aside from Mortimer. The real speculative takeaway should probably be on sales - considering we're at the end of January, it's likely MS has some internal sales data on the new hardware, which would lend firmer reasoning to this admittedly flaky story.
Another take is that it could be that MS wanted to get some info out to the public, but lacking any real media for some of these upcoming games (admittedly they could just conjure up some bullshots/CG trailers), they decided to take a more grassroots approach to build up excitement in the hardcore segment and just let the information disseminate to the masses from there.
If ya wanna get really tinfoil-hat theorycrafting, it could be part of some careful attack to discredit CBOAT and other insiders while at the same time replacing him with a controlled source. Hey, I didn't say it was tinfoil-hat tier for nuffin'.
Another take is that it could be that MS wanted to get some info out to the public, but lacking any real media for some of these upcoming games (admittedly they could just conjure up some bullshots/CG trailers), they decided to take a more grassroots approach to build up excitement in the hardcore segment and just let the information disseminate to the masses from there.
If ya wanna get really tinfoil-hat theorycrafting, it could be part of some careful attack to discredit CBOAT and other insiders while at the same time replacing him with a controlled source. Hey, I didn't say it was tinfoil-hat tier for nuffin'.