I personally think that he was, or at least has some idea that Sega has had discussions with Microsoft about their Western studios. He's been hinting at it for over six months.
There's also been some curious evidence since E3 last year that I compiled in an earlier thread:
"Also, this is weird "pseudo-evidence," but Phil doesn't tweet a lot about third-party games. He did, however, tweet a lot about Hellblade when it was coming to Xbox One (long before E3). Perhaps they were already in negotiations with Ninja Theory so he was trying to give them some press? One of the only other third-party games he mentioned that seemingly had very little linking it to Xbox (other than the fact that it will merely exist on the platform) was Valkyria Chronicles 4. He also mentioned Valkyria Chronicles 4 again as part of a larger discussion about Hellblade being his favorite non-Xbox game of this generation (again, this was before the Ninja Theory acquisition). There was also, in February, some tweets from the official Sega Twitter about Sega visiting Xbox. Now, I'm sure these kinds of visits happen all the time, but it does seem odd that Sega would come from Japan (when Microsoft has only been working with their western studios) on nothing but a (what I'm assuming is standard in the industry) goodwill mission. That series of tweets is here. There's also a Sonic plushie involved and I doubt Relic (who is working on AOE4) or Creative Assembly (who worked on Halo Wars 2) rolls around with a Sonic plushie in their luggage. Yes, they are a part of Sega, but largely operate independently."
