One part of the issue that I haven't seen addressed is the confusion caused by his job title. Much play is made out of "Creative Director" - all this means is that he was A Creative Director, but the story is spun that he was The Creative Director.

I have no idea how many "Creative Directors" Microsoft has, or how many in the XBox division, but in general at MS "Director" in your job title usually just means that you are at a level above senior (otherwise known as principal) and (sometimes) are a manager of managers.

So among other things, this is collateral damage caused by title inflation.