I was reading an Xbox-centric forum this morning, checking in and seeing how people were taking the news. I'd say it broke into thirds, roughly. A third of them were putting no stock in the rumors. They were waiting for Phil to tell them what the "reality" is. Until then, it was all just rumor. Another third were very disenchanted with what they had heard. They were ready to jump ship. The other third said that, even if the rumors are true, they would still enjoy their Xboxes, their GamePass, and their Xbox game library, including the BC catalog.
I didn't have any concerns about the last two thirds -- the disenchanted and the people who will still enjoy their Xboxes. Those two positions seem entirely reasonable to me. It was the first group that concerned me -- the ones who were waiting for Daddy Phil to spell things out for them. We know that Phil & company are going to do a PR dance about this, in order to avoid alienating the core Xbox user base. He's going to use more than a handful of sugar to help the medicine go down. And these guys are going to just lap it up. It's like they can't put 2 and 2 together without Phil telling them what the answer is.