This is a really great discussion about Autodesk’s attitude toward Maya and the like in 3D art. Really strong on engineering, sure, but 3D art they seem weak. The idea of unification across products, heck that never played out in all these years, just that they bought and killed off SoftImage XSI, and many 3D art folks are still missing it. Yeah, I miss it too, I only visited their website once and read about them from the periphery, but yeah you can see in its heyday it was used in some important movies and the like.
20200626/https://blenderartists.org/t/is-autodesk-trying-to-commit-suicide/1166568/278
Oh, wait, but here’s the real explanation behind what was happening with XSI.
As for Xsi, yes, it was a big loss when Adesk purchased it, but honestly it was on the way out, regardless. When they purchased it, Xsi had dwindling seat numbers and never really took off. Its development was unsustainable and Avid knew the writing was on the wall, and when they sold Xsi the company shut down and Adesk were simply there to mop it up and pick the bones for tech(with ICE finally being utilised as Adesk currently push heavy development of Bifrost for Max/Maya)
Wow, now that’s a really interesting back-story.