Giants may have known it was going to happen, and what the consequences were, however they are saying they weren’t informed when it would happen as it took them by surprise too.
I’m fairly sure that had giants at some point in the past said ‘hey guys, this will happen at some point in the future but we don’t know when’ then it would have made no difference at all to the players a few weeks later when it happened. They still would have reacted in the same way. ‘Well, you were warned’ would not have made them any happier.
None of us can say for sure if Microsoft informed Giants of the date it would happen, so we just have to accept the situation for what it is and move on. It’s a different situation than knowing that Giants have changed things without letting us know (pallet limit for example)