There's no evidence that no technical consultation was done. It's very likely that senior technical staff were consulted, and asked to keep it quiet (and succee

There's no evidence that no technical consultation was done. It's very likely that senior technical staff were consulted, and asked to keep it quiet (and succeeded). All this report says is that rank and file had to be calmed down after the reveal (fair enough). That doesn't mean that technical input wasn't asked or, or even listened to. Like, I can totally see something like HQ asking "What would it take for you to grow X, achieve Y, by Z", and then PlayStation unit saying something like "M people, N money, O risk". And then HQ was like "oh, MS can do better than that".