I know this story! I was told approximately the following by someone who used to be on the MS Flight Sim team.
So years ago, Flight Sim was part of Home and Office, but they were in the process of moving over to the gaming division. Back in 2009, the call came throughout Microsoft that teams had to cut a certain % of their head count, it so happened that for Home and Office, the size of the Flight Sim team was about the % of the headcount that needed to be cut.
So the head of Home and Office didn't let the transfer of Flight Sim go through, and instead kept them in the H&O division as a sacrificial lamb. Thus, a perfectly profitable product got cut.
(Division names may be wrong, they change a lot over time)
So years ago, Flight Sim was part of Home and Office, but they were in the process of moving over to the gaming division. Back in 2009, the call came throughout Microsoft that teams had to cut a certain % of their head count, it so happened that for Home and Office, the size of the Flight Sim team was about the % of the headcount that needed to be cut.
So the head of Home and Office didn't let the transfer of Flight Sim go through, and instead kept them in the H&O division as a sacrificial lamb. Thus, a perfectly profitable product got cut.
(Division names may be wrong, they change a lot over time)