They grew from 10,000 to 17,000 in the span of 2 years, Lol.

Bobby Kotick absolutely would have slashed thousands of jobs if the deal failed, or even if the deal didn't happen at all, Activision-Blizzard laid off 775 employees in 2018 which equated to 8% of their total size at the time, during which, 2018 was a record year for Activision-Blizzard.

Every single company in the industry aside from Nintendo is being hit by layoffs.

Definitely some of it attributed. But with ABK hiring 7,000 employees since January 2022, nearly doubling their overall employee count within a span of 2 years, and a not well received CoD release, hampers numbers. ABK were drastically scaling back on their Esports division since it just wasn't profitable anymore, which was a big as part of the layoffs. Overwatch League is no more for example which by itself had hundreds of people running the entire league. Like the rest of the tech industry, companies just over hired or bet a lot on Esports.

Well yeah. Layoffs would have happened, especially if the deal didn't go through. Stocks would have dropped significantly causing layoffs. 

Halo 2x01 - Opening Scene - Master Chief VS Covenant Monsters (HD) (youtube.com)

I'll admit, I didn't have much faith in the new showrunner but it sounds good so far, Lol.

Legit tempted to just start at Season 2.

Now kill off Makee. It would even make some sense to introduce Arbiter in Season 2 since he was around for the events of Reach, or Season 3 since he was also around for the events of Installation 04. I think it could be interesting to introduce him earlier than the games did, so you can see his fall from grace and how his character evolves.

Not only it is likely and logical that ABK already had a plan for this, the hold-off was likely due the the merger process itself.
If you place yourself in MS's shoes, if ABK were to do mass layoffs anywhere between January 2022 and October 2023 you would be pissed as those would likely not align fully with what you're aiming for and would result in an entity that is different than what you intended to purchase.
Likewise, MS obviously could not provide any such plan to ABK since it would have been a clear indication that ABK was not acting independently anymore.

Obviously, I hate layoffs just as anyone, but at least I understand it to some extent.

OMG, they actually have the cowboy hat from the 1996 Sonic OVA which I use in my sig here on VGC! I love when the creators of an adaptation are actually fans of the original thing they are adapting, only a true Sonic fan would think to include a Sonic OVA reference.

Double post

All right, I tried going back a few days and that is several hundred posts. I didn't want to post this if someone already had posted this rumor:
Xbox's Next-Gen Consoles Reportedly Coming in 2026, Will Also Launch a Nintendo Switch-Like Dockable Handheld

I've no idea how reliable IGN India is ... Sorry never posted in Xbox threads sorry if rumors like this are unwelcome.

I have no idea who this is but I did see it already, the source isn't IGN India, it's MAGG.

Having said that, lately I swear I've seen like 20+ "insiders" that I've never heard of across the past 2 weeks