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Ensemble shutting down; Head dudes make new studio; new studio will support Halo Wars
FyreWulff
YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
Confirmed.
before confirmation:
Reported at H.B.O and Shacknews
If this is true, Halo Wars is doomed. The game wasn't even really mentioned or shown at E3, only given a trailer release like 2 days afterwords, without any real press backing. I guess MS is shutting down it's studios left and right.
Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.
The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars. This decision does not reflect at all on Ensembles talent or the quality of Halo Wars. in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game.
This was a fiscally-rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.
As to our overall strategy at MGS, it remains the same. We are committed to growing MGS with world-class talent both internally and with our external partners around the globe. We have recently added some well-known developers to our team and will continue growing the team. Were particularly excited about the titles we have in the pipeline and continue to evaluate additional opportunities to bring incredible games to life with the industrys best. Our investment in games has never been greater than it is today.
before confirmation:
Reported at H.B.O and Shacknews
Shacknews has learned via multiple independent reports that developer Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires) will shut down operation following the release of its upcoming title Halo Wars.
According to sources, employees not associated with Halo Wars have been laid off today. Those attached to Halo Wars have been offered incentives to stay on the project until completion.
Halo Wars, an RTS based on the Halo franchise, was announced in September of 2006. The Xbox 360 title is currently slated for release sometime in the first half of 2009.
Ensemble Studios was founded in 1995. The Microsoft-owned company is best known for the Age of Empires series of RTS games.
Shacknews has contacted both Microsoft and Ensemble for comment, but has not yet received a reply.
If this is true, Halo Wars is doomed. The game wasn't even really mentioned or shown at E3, only given a trailer release like 2 days afterwords, without any real press backing. I guess MS is shutting down it's studios left and right.
FyreWulff on
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https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Sad day
They've pretty much closed their other ones down or let their clos buddies get away.
FASA. Ensemble.
Let Bizarre Creations and Bioware get bought by third parties.
Turn 10 is probably next.
Eventually they're either going to make everyone just 'Microsoft' or all we'll have left for MS first party is Rare as a 'seperate' studio.
Incidentally, What is Big Huge Games (Rise of Nations and the AoE3 expansions) working on?
I didn't like Age of Mythology or AoE3 that much, though. Apparently not a lot of other people did, either.
Rise of Nations 2, I hope.
No closer than, say, team ninja. The only game they did that Microsoft published was ME, and even that wasn't apparently that exclusive, since EA published the PC version
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Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
You.
Are.
Next.
The platform teams are very safe.
(I've got also got an enormous amount of experience and there are a ton of game companies around here anyway, so worst case scenario I'm still in good shape)
Anyway, as someone noted already, this is certainly not the first or even second time an internal studio has been closed. Everyone remembers FASA last year. There have been others previous too. Shane Kim a while ago, did an interview which explains the strategy behind MGS. Previously because 3rd party publishers were not developing for the original Xbox, MGS had to fill in a lot of genres by itself ... either through internal development or acquisitions.
Times have certainly changed, especially considering how the 360 is arguably the 3rd party darling of the industry.
Anyway, that's all I'll say. My buddies and I will be talking about this for a while, but I doubt I can talk about it.
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Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
I don't really care for these guys, but the steps they're taking are plain out weird... surely a profitable PC dev who were clearly learning 360 should be kept?
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
My Backloggery
Also.. please don't take Lionhead MS
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Rare is pretty much 'closed' already. Unlike Bungie, they don't even own their IP anymore. Rare is pretty much a brandname now.
I think the one consoling fact I have about Rare is that it's more like Bungie - if MS chooses to let them go, they'll either sell them or hand it back or something - they won't just get shut down.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Age of Empires sold 20 million. Forza didnt sell 1/10 of that.
That's great and all... but there's no indication of how much it cost to keep them running through AoE3 + xpacs. 2 million sell-in is great, but it doesn't even tell half of the story.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Anyway, I imagine an RTS game company on a console isn't worth much to Microsoft anymore. Why they didn't keep them PC side, well, probably because AoE3 is pretty crap in comparison to a lot of different RTS's (Company of Heroes mainly) on the PC. Guess they didn't want to invest in them anymore.
Is it a poor decision, though? Yeah, probably.
No, that's the franchise. I doubt AoE3 sold well at all.
Yes I know.
Age of Empires the series has sold 10 times as much as Forza 1 and 2.
Forza 2 was discontinued in publishing only 6 months after it's release.
You see the issue was Microsoft was putting out both PGR and Forza. It was basically competing against itself.
And CAR_RACING_GAME is no longer a system seller like it was in the early PS2 days. Now it's SHOOTING_GAME.
but RACE_CAR_DRIVER games don't sell anymore you see
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54654
Only keeping the Halo Wars leadership team? Those guys are going to be stuck making Halo skinned AoE games for a while, unless it sells horribly.
Edit: People should digg my post on it.
Yeah, and Halo 2 just got a platinum release and there's still only 3000 people playing it online.
It's still very much discontinued.
Games don't go platinum to celebrate them selling awesome, they go platinum because Microsoft figures they've pretty much sold as much as they have, so they're trying to get people to buy it at a lower price.