Microsoft made $158b gross profit year, which was a 14% increase over the previous year.

As a comparison, General Motors’ revenue was $170b. Microsoft made almost as much in profit as GM took in totality.

Closing the studios maybe will save Microsoft $0.1b, so potentially increase their profit line by 0.05%.

So hard to think of it as anything other than a middle finger to the devs. Even if it were a mistake, they could afford to let it cook longer like with Rare and redeem the “mistake”.