Microsoft completely misjudged Baldur’s Gate 3

It's outselling is what caused Microsoft to not deny it. It originally denied it because they had a rule that games needed feature parity with both Series X and S. BG3 split screen couldn't be done on S. The massive success is what led them to relax the rule. And virtually no one saw this level of success coming from within the gaming industry, including the developers themselves.
Edit: I just realized this is being upset about Starfield.
That is totally the fault of gamers. The biggest reason given for buying a PS5 over Xbox was exclusives. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? Sony started the exclusives battle and continually came out ahead. Obviously MS is going to fight. Making exclusives such an important decision in console purchases drove exclusives to be important overall. There's no sense in being upset that the industrynis literally responded to gamer's actions and stated motivations.
- What the fuck did you think was going to happen?
  Microsoft would develop their existing first party studios and improve the quality of their first party titles, invest in third parties that they already had exclusive relationships with, or invest in up and coming studios?
  Had Bethesda published a Microsoft exclusive since Morrowind?
- My reason for buying a PS5 is my Xbone bit the dust, and my Xbox 360 also had issues when I traded it in. My ps2 and ps1 still work. There was also the fact that the only available options were PS5 or Series S. I didn't buy the console for exclusives, I bought it because it was the better available console and my previous one was dead.
Only if your goal is selling the game and not the console
- They're not selling large amounts of either.
  MS is in the subscription selling business now. Their entire gaming future hinges on GamePass, and while I like the idea of games on tap (I've basically bought BG3 for my PS5 and nothing else in the year since I bought it, enough on PS+ to keep me going and I can barely catch up let alone keep up), I suspect the big devs that spend hundreds of millions on making AAA games are less than enthralled with the idea and if GamePass and day one "free" games win, the outcome will be more games that I'm not really interested in.
  PS+ is not as good a product as GamePass, but I believe it's healthier overall for the gaming industry.
What's truly not surprising is Sony fanboys defending the benefits of exclusives up until Xbox has an exclusive they want.
I thought this article is about BG3, wtf are you talking about?
- They think only PlayStation should have exclusives because it's the biggest.

Tbf, a lot of people misjudged it, including Larian. I don't think a lot of people really believed the "choices and decisions matter" would work as well as it did. Prior to release, I read an article that talked about how it was gonna be neat that the in-game news would update based on your actions. Like, that was the noteworthy function to discuss about the game. "NPCs might talk about your actions in passing to each other".

Did Microsoft underestimate it more than others? Sure. But pretending like every corporation, including Larian, didn't underestimate it a whole lot is a bit crazy.

Edit: and isn't the game Divinity: Original Sin II? Did it have other names in other international markets?

Edit: this was submitted as a response to https://lemmy.world/comment/3615435 but Kbin didn't seem to actually tie them together. It shows me that it was written as a reply on Kbin, but seems to have lost connection to the comment hierarchy.

The degree of success couldn't be predicted, sure. But larian is not a new studio, BG is a big ip, DOS2 was a big success, the witcher 3 was a tremendous success, and the game was in early access for 3 years so you could very easily gauge how it was going.
If a decider can't see that coming at least as a significant possibility, they're all clowns who don't deserve more than the lowest wages.
- easily gauge how it was going.
  Except virtually everyone got it wrong still. Even the head of Larian thought it'd top out at 100k max. That's currently it's average now with it's max being more than 800% higher.
  BG is a big IP, but it's never had this level of success. Look at Diablo III's release (similar IP with a long break between games). It had better advertising campaign and still kind of became noise fairly quickly. Game news sites barely covered BG3 until it hit it big.
  Microsoft definitely undershot, but it was likely basing it on a lot of the aggregated news as well. It had barely any coverage prior to its official release. This is usually a sign that the game will be mediocre.
  Larian is a big studio but its last expected game from its really only known IP was cancelled after being put on hold for four years (granted BG3 was also being developed during this time). It's biggest games prior to this got at least partially funded on Kickstarter (not a knock against KS, but it's not generally seen as the sign of a strong studio to exec-types).
  I don't blame an executive for not seeing this coming.
  Executives obviously didn't see this coming. But neither did game journalists or even gamers.
  Its a mistake in hindsight, but with what everyone generally knew at the time, it was the expectation of most.
Divinity Original Sin 2 was their previous game from some years ago
- I'm well aware of that. That's why I named it. They said "Divinity of Sin 2". I was asking if they meant Divinity: Original Sin 2 and if it went by a different name in other markets. I thought that was clear. I'm not sure how you got to think I was asking what it is.
I think it's just an interesting story since we have actual internal emails from Microsoft that we wouldn't have if it weren't for the justice department's lawsuit to stop the Activision buyout.

Looks like someone did not play Divinity of Sin 2 and so did not know about Larian´s potential ...

- Considering they only care about money, that is indeed a good point!

Wat?
- I think one of the love interests is a druid shape shifter...

Are we even surprised? Microsoft clearly doesn’t know how to judge a game’s quality.

They do, they just define "quality" by something that can be measured in Dollar. You and I don't.
- True, and it’s depressing

To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.

Calling it "second run Stadia PC RPG" implies Microsoft thought it was going to launch as a Stadia exclusive for it's first run. This was back in 2020 when Stadia was still a thing, and trying to sign up exclusives.

That doesn't mean Microsoft underestimated it, but that it thought it'd already have had a run on Stadia which would make it less likely to be an important title for Microsoft.

To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.
They surely misunderstood the second run Stadia/PC RPG mention.
That doesn’t mean Microsoft underestimated it
What does mean Microsoft underestimated it is that part: Expected partner range: ~$5M range
- Their publisher also expected the game to have about one-tenth of the actual players. I don't think anyone knew how big it would be.
  The $5M also refers to what they thought Larian would want for it to be included on Game Pass.

this article is garbage and built entirely on polygon misreading one word

What word did they misread? "HUB"? what does that mean?

What I want to know is will we ever see a new Champions of Norrath game? Does anyone remember that game?