How could I? They're either promoting the brand 24/7 on Twitter (and attacking PlayStation), or making Youtube videos promoting the brand every chance they get (and also attacking PlayStation).
I mean, Sony & Nintendo have zealots too, but I've never see corporate people there actually openly gaming with them online or frequenting their podcasts to do PR rounds. I'm glad that they respect the boundary of business & customer. If I want to feel personally connected, it should be through the content you produce.
Well, I think the result of this ABK acquisition will heavily play into how things proceed going forward. If they get ABK, but it comes with heavy divestiture (namely COD & Activision), I can see Microsoft playing hardball with more Blizzard IP, and they try expanding King to make that their main foray for multiplatform content across mobile & console, maybe replicating Minecraft in some way to try doing so.
If they don't get ABK whatsoever, I seriously see them shifting the Xbox model from the traditional console business model to a NUC mini-PC style gaming device over the next two years, and bringing all games to all platforms with native support. They might start with porting Pentiment to Switch & iOS, alongside Grounded & Sea of Thieves, and porting Starfield, Hellblade II, Avowed to PS5. Possibly Flight Sim as well. And then with newer releases you'll just see them be multiplat across Xbox, PS, Switch, PC and mobile, as long as the platform can run the game.
I also think in that scenario, Microsoft open up the Xbox Series consoles to run Windows in full, but for an upgrade fee, say $100 or $200, and you can basically use a Series X or S as a PC. Maybe they introduce new Series hardware by then with that functionality built-in and baked-in already. By the time they bring out 10th-generation consoles, they won't call them "consoles" anymore, they'll be fully pushed branding-wise as console-like gaming mini PCs with various upgradability options (CPU, GPU, RAM, storage etc.) and unique form factors. Base specs for at least some model targeting roughly what the PS6 will be able to do. Sold at healthy profit margins.
That's what I can see happening if the ABK deal falls through, or even if the divestitures are so strict that MS basically get little and shareholders on both sides can't agree to anything if the deal has to be renegotiated.
Correction. Lots of big tech companies are laying people off. Those are the main ones that seem to be firing tens of thousands of people.