I actually RTFA.
Microsoft changed the requirements just a week after signing the deal. Not a nice thing to do, but Darkside hadn't spent all the money then, and could have simply said no. They agreed to the change with the hope they could convince Microsoft to give them more money later.

Microsoft decided they didn't want to throw more money than what they wanted to at it and did the smart thing and cancelled the contract. They had already spent $2M, the studio wanted up to $3M more than they budgeted for to complete the project. Cancelling the project saved them $1M and all of the risk involved.

Neither, I put the number 1 at the end!1

I'm not stupid.

Probably good to have something like "if you change requirements after XYZ and don't provide additional fund, we can take the money and not deliver anything"
Or run on time + materials, so you get paid for time, not deliverables.

It will reduce battery life.

If a screen is built with a semi-reflective layer between the backlight and the layer of pixels, it can be illuminated from the front as well.
The down-side is higher manufacturing costs and a brighter backlight is required - that draws more power.

Two decades ago, if you said there was a product available, with more processing power than your current laptop that has a 24/7 internet connection, can fit in your pocket, has a 1080p display and the battery lasts all day, they'd tell you you were smoking crack, that their Intel Pentium is amazing, especially compared to their own 486, and an 800x600 14" screen is perfect, why would you need anything more on a portable device? TV only comes at 480 or 576 lines of resolution anyway.

The Moto G is a bit slow. It may be a 1.3GHz quad core CPU, but those at Cortex A7 cores, not more powerful A15, 17 or Krait. etc, that do more than twice the instructions per cycle.
Having four cores is also a bit overkill. Your app will pause because it's written poorly and performing long running tasks in the UI thread, consuming only a single core. You'll still be able to swipe down from the top of the screen though, and that will be nice and responsive.

I'm lucky I have the dual sim version though, since sim slot one keeps popping the sim card out now after around a year of having it.

The backlight will need to be brighter, because the higher density screen will be less transparent.

Wrong.
Generally, the more pixels, the more back light is required because the display is less transparent, due to more pixels, more transistors, and more conductive traces on the glass.
You need to shine more light at the back of it to get the same amount out the front.

Unfortunately the only bears we have in New Zealand are in the zoo.
Too many people, not enough bears.

Yet it's still less than they would pay if they bought a Sky TV package.

A blueray disc in NZ is around $30
An entire season of a TV show can get above $60 though, Game of Thrones Season 4 is $68 on Blueray, $58 on DVD. A 20 DVD set of the first 4 seasons is $134

Sounds like you cousin is getting ripped off.

This is the local media companies getting in a tiz, spreading lies through the local media saying what they're doing is stealing content and piracy and all they want to do is protect their rights and have people pay for content.

When in actual fact, the services they want banned, referred to as Global Mode, do nothing more that get around geo-blocking. Giving New Zealanders the opportunity to pay the same price for the same content as someone in a different country. Doesn't help anyone to get content without paying for it. You just don't have to pay the local media company $60 a month just to watch a single show on HBO.

Not to mention the shows Sky TV, Media Works or TVNZ don't bother to purchase, because they think we don't want to watch them.

I'm a hard working tech worker in New Zealand, supporting a family of 4 and own my own home.

Heartbleed was around for 2 years before it was discovered.