His initial #dealwithit comment reflects a lot of what people are seeing in the industry today, so it's easy to believe he was serious and holds that opinion. Brushing off serious concerns with what was apparently a joke doesn't reflect well, either. No, it's not as though it's some kind of official announcement or leak of information. However it reflects on an attitude the big-league players have had, and an attitude which has been becoming more obvious and harmful to the consumers. Whatever we do, you'll still buy it. We don't actually care about your feedback. We'll do as we want regardless of what effect it has on you, and your only option is to deal with it.
Do you happen to have a link on hand where he says otherwise? If he claimed sarcasm, well, we really DO need to get around to making some kind of symbol or font :)
We don't need to go back in time more than two weeks to realize the social shitshow that can be Twitter and how it can have an impact on your employment. Whether it was a joke all along or not, it was a stupid sentiment to troll with when speaking as even the slightest bit of a representative for Microsoft.
The worst thing he could really have done at this point was hide all of his tweets, particularly that one. If he kept something up saying it was just friendly banter, of course I don't really believe this, etc, then he could have not only saved him image, but also gotten more people to see him as ON their side vs against them. A huge boon for himself and his company as a whole.
People are people, and I can't expect a person to show absolutely zero character and personality outside of their company branding (And I am blessed to work for a company who thinks likewise). As a person and a figure of the industry, his opinion on things is something to pay attention to. If he could have just kept up that jk/lol tweet, things probably would not have turned out so nasty.
You can scrutinize the fact that this happened in public and you can discuss how truthful the two parties (from different companies) involved are being when they make this claim, but that's their side of the story. This is not meant to be an announcement from anyone at Microsoft that this will be in the next Xbox.