Jeff Grubb: "[Obsidian closure/buyout] was going around inside Microsoft"
Grubb addressed the Obsidian situation on the latest episode of his Game Mess Decides podcast, the tldr was that he checked with his sources and confirmed that at least at one point Obsidian was in the discussion to be shut down or sold. Seems like, according to him, the confusion stems from Xbox making decisions/changing their mind "within a 24 hour period" when in the past it would have taken weeks/months.