Microsoft Breaks Ensemble Down
Claims it's never been more invested in games.
Microsoft has announced it’s killing off one of gaming’s real-time strategy greats, Ensemble Studios.
Ensemble started out as an independent games developer and quickly spawned the popular Age of Empires franchise. Having published all of the studio’s continually successful games, Microsoft figured it wanted the whole pie and so it bought the company. Ensemble continued churning out popular ‘Age of’ games, but it created the latest title in collaboration with Rise of Nations developer, Big Huge Games – namely, Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties.
Most recently, Ensemble was set to work on milking the almighty Halo teat. This pooled into the titular reservoir ‘Halo Wars’, the upcoming RTS interpretation of the immensely popular shooter. Now that the team is nearing completion of the game, Microsoft says it’s about done with the original pie. Once the game has gone gold, they’re kaput.
One might assume Big Huge Games proved its worth.
But why close the solid studio after all its successes? Microsoft blames the closure on a “fiscally-rooted decision”. So rooted, it seems, that we’re not getting the whole story, if any of it at all.
Not everyone at the experienced games studio will be facing the sack. The top dogs at Ensemble will go on to form a new, as yet unnamed studio, which for some reason will be more capable than the current studio. Other ‘as many as possible’ Ensemble worker bees will be offered positions elsewhere at Microsoft, presumably janitorial.
Announcing its intention to drop the development pad as soon as the game is out the door, Microsoft is undoubtedly boosting morale to an all-time high. Members may feel as if they weren’t at all exploited or molested to the last minute, thus ensuring that Halo Wars will be feature-complete and dripping in hot, fatty awesome.
Microsoft suggests this completely sensible news may cast a shadow over the game and says that the decision has nothing to do with its quality. We’re not sure what would give that impression.
It concludes the announcement with “Our investment in games has never been greater than it is today.”
We look forward to future investments in gaming from Microsoft.
Supporting our habits:
2008.09.11 12:20
To clarify, those comments weren't an official statement per se, but from a leaked email from the head of MGS, Phil Spencer - full email is here
2008.09.11 18:33
Bzzzt! Wrong, but thank you for playing.