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 Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 07:35 Post subject: Microsoft closes Ensemlbe Studios !!! |
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Confirmation has come fast in regard to rumors surfacing earlier today that Microsoft would be closing its internal developer Ensemble Studios upon the completion of sci-fi real-time strategy game Halo Wars. In a statement issued today, Microsoft confirmed that Ensemble will be shut down once the Xbox 360-exclusive RTS set in the best-selling Halo franchise ships out early next year.
"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," the publisher said in a statement. "This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s 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."
Though Microsoft will close the studio, Ensemble has plans to soldier on. As part of today's statement, Microsoft said that Ensemble's "leadership team" will form a new development house and has already entered into an agreement with the publisher to continue supporting Halo Wars post-launch, "as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios."
Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, "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 noted earlier today, the Age of Empires brand has sold more than 20 million units since the first installment debuted on the PC in 1997. According to the NPD Group, Age of Empires III for the PC has sold 1.15 million units in the US alone through July 2008, with The Warchiefs expansion tallying nearly 305,000 more. (The second expansion, Asian Dynasties, was developed by Rise of Nations creators Big Huge Games.)
Ensemble has been a Microsoft-owned studio since 2001.
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Source: Gamespot
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Ankh
Posts: 23342
Location: Trelleborg
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 07:44 Post subject: |
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Saw this earlier - quite weird as they games were very popular. But personally I thought the first two Age Of Empires were their best ones and I never really got into AoE3 and AoM
shitloads of new stuff in my pc. Cant keep track of it all.
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LeoNatan
☢ NFOHump Despot ☢
Posts: 73196
Location: Ramat Gan, Israel 🇮🇱
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 07:44 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 07:48 Post subject: |
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I think the current Ensemble is not that of 10 years ago. So M$ killed nothing but the company that brought us AoE 3, which a lot of AoE fanatics never accepted anyways.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 08:04 Post subject: |
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OMG NO MORE AGE OF EMPIRES 19...THOUSAND. Don't care, AOE series died after 2 and could never have recovered. I can't think of any big RTS developers other than Relic and Ironclad these days.
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pakko
Posts: 263
Location: Pizzaland
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 09:18 Post subject: |
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i loved AoM... soo fucking fun on lan with friends T__T
goods days and months..
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b0se
Banned
Posts: 5901
Location: Rapture
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 11:33 Post subject: |
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Ensemble Studios will soon be a memory, but Microsoft's Shane Kim says the Age of Empires franchise has life left in it still:
While Microsoft is losing the studio responsible for the successful PC franchise Age of Empires, “Microsoft continues to own Age of Empires.” Kim explains, “It is not losing Age of Empires itself. We’re still super excited for the potential for the franchise. The Windows gaming world continues to evolve, and we believe in the future of that property.”
Kim’s excitement behind Age of Empires is just one example of Microsoft’s commitment to first-party games for Windows, and Kim wanted to make very clear that even though Ensemble’s PC output has been very successful for the publisher, the death of the studio does not mean that Microsoft has lost faith in PC. Kim states unequivocally that there is “absolutely” a future in first-party Games for Windows software, and that gamers shouldn’t take the end of Ensemble to mean that there is any change in how Microsoft's PC gaming strategy on a whole.
[spoiler][quote="SteamDRM"]i've bought mohw :derp: / FPS of the year! [/quote]
[quote="SteamDRM"][quote="b0se"]BLACK OPS GOTY[/quote]
No.[/quote][/spoiler]
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 12:33 Post subject: |
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Strange, they're closing one of their more succesful studios just before the Halo Wars release. Maybe they're just integrating the employees into their own dev studio, it's probably only the name going down.
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 14:09 Post subject: |
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Age 2, still rulez @ 2008. It still has tournaments going around and quite a few experts still play the game.
Best medieval RTS still and one of the best RTS games of all time.
Microsoft and the choice they make though....pff....
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 14:37 Post subject: |
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| LeoNatan wrote: | RIP!
Fuck Microsoft! |
and what about ACCESS SOFTWARE their best ADVENTURE GAMES developer with the TEX MURPHY SERIES , they close it down
fucking M$
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Ankh
Posts: 23342
Location: Trelleborg
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 16:43 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 17:09 Post subject: |
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I actually really enjoyed AOE 3 o.0
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upstart_69
Posts: 1094
Location: Right behind you!
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 17:52 Post subject: |
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What an awesome reward for trying to conform to MS's monolithic will and join the other ms-owned studios in switching gears from being a pc-only developer into also making console games. In the Halo franchise, no less!
I visited their studios once, a bunch of nice guys. A real shame. And to add a bit, a bigwig with MS(Kim Shane?) tried to play it off like they are generous overlords by offering positions to most (now-unemployed) devs with MGS. However I can hardly see most of the guys being able to take off from their already established lives in Dallas to make a Huge leap of faith to Redmond, Wash.
Fuck it pisses me off.
Anyways once again MS showing its true colours with doing everything in its part to end PC Gaming as we know it. No matter what they say(exact opposite) they are the ones bringing it to its knees.
Core i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz | 6GB OCZ DDR3 8-8-8-24 @ 1600mhz | eVga x58 Mobo | 2 x eVga GTX 460 SLI | Intel X25-M + 3x Seagate + WD Black = 2.75TB | X-Fi Titanium | PCP&C Silencer 750 | G15 KB | G5 Mouse | G35 Headset | Z-5500 Digital | Samsung T260HD
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 18:48 Post subject: |
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Well, let's face it. Halo Wars was a stupid fucking idea. A really stupid fucking idea, like that Everquest RTS. Did that ever happen anyway? They're probably just disappointed and assuming that anything halo is bound to be awesome:roll:. Upon realizing Halo Wars was terrible (there is no way you can make that idea good), they probably decided to off the developer.
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Hierofan
Banned
Posts: 3807
Location: Internets
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 20:09 Post subject: |
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ya , AoE 3 , wasnt that bad
but it's a darn shame that Microsoft tends to concentrate only on money making products ..
shit , 10 years ago they had a more diverse set of games , some flopped comercially , some didnt , but that didnt mean that they weren't good
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 20:10 Post subject: |
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| Hierofan wrote: | ya , AoE 3 , wasnt that bad
but it's a darn shame that Microsoft tends to concentrate only on money making products ..
shit , 10 years ago they had a more diverse set of games , some flopped comercially , some didnt , but that didnt mean that they weren't good |
I'd like to see them do another Freelancer(wasn't this studio but as an example), I dunno how they managed to not see how well that one did.
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Vassago
Posts: 635
Location: Wanking in hell
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 22:36 Post subject: |
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| Hierofan wrote: | ya , AoE 3 , wasnt that bad
but it's a darn shame that Microsoft tends to concentrate only on money making products ..
shit , 10 years ago they had a more diverse set of games , some flopped comercially , some didnt , but that didnt mean that they weren't good |
well Vista flopped , x360 also with they RROD loss thats now is like 2.5 billion dollars was 1.9b $ is 2007
so yeah now they are bleeding for money , they did new ADV for Vista to cover the losses and convince people Vista is the new MESSIAH - the Mojave EX and the Bill+Seinfeld gigs
so yeah now they close all that is not important for Vista and X360 , o and yeah they battle Ipods now with they new Thinner Zune 
hate money greediness
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Surray
Posts: 5409
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 22:57 Post subject: |
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they're just moving the guys from ensemble to some other studio. it's not like they're firing them.
Likot Mosuskekim, Woodcutter cancels Sleep: Interrupted by Elephant.
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 23:01 Post subject: |
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Vista did not flop. In its first month Vista generated more money than most countries annual income.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly
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| Posted: Thu, 11th Sep 2008 23:39 Post subject: |
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Wanna know why? Not because customers chose to, because they were forced to buy new computers with Vista on it. It was one big M$ push. XP was nowhere to be found for a while. I've sold these "new" machines, and I hated it by heart to see what Vista became, but still I was forced to sell it and customers were forced to buy it.
"YARR! We be stealin' yer games an plundrin' yer gold!" sez the pirate.
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Big_Gun
Posts: 3017
Location: My mother's womb originally. . .
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| Posted: Fri, 12th Sep 2008 01:18 Post subject: |
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I actually like Vista now.
(puts on flame retardant suit)
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Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
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| Posted: Fri, 12th Sep 2008 01:38 Post subject: |
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I like Vista as well, but then again my computer is running at 3.6ghz quadcore with 4gb ddr3 2000mhz ram and 2 4870x2 cards... kinda ridiculous it takes this much power to make me like it.
I still hate developing on and for it though, but thats another discussion entirely 
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| Posted: Sat, 13th Sep 2008 19:33 Post subject: |
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I enjoyed AOK, and also AOE3. They were very different games.
Fucking Microsoft bastards. First FASA and now Ensemble.
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