Its being reported on a bunch of other news sites too, i got into the series with AoE3 and its one of my most played games of all time, its pretty bad a when a great team like this gets taken down.
Zucas, but MS has shown interest in staying in the industry and making the "Xbox720".
Shadowblind said:
Yes I have noticed. And you stated exactly why they would want to have a 1st party dev team. So they can actually MAKE the games as well as publish them. |
Yes but if they did that they wouldn't be laying off employees of those companies but instead absolving the company into Microsoft Game studios. Then it would become a developer. But instead the rumor says they are just getting rid of it entirely. I hope they keep the licenses to the brands or otherwise they'll sell those off.
| JGarret said: Zucas, but MS has shown interest in staying in the industry and making the "Xbox720". |
Things change. Remember MS has lost a hell of a lot of money in the gamind industry since R&D of the Xbox. I mean they may have had enough or feel they can't gain a good enough foothold in it. I mean it's very possible. And it's not like Ninty per se who the success in this market means everything to them. MS could completely fail and it wouldn't hurt them but it might be something they wish not to take on anymore.
I mean signs are pointing in both directions. I always thought what MS would do after the Xbox 1 is that they'd try 360 and eventually a 720 and if they didn't gain enough stronghold or money in the market they'd drop. Really dropping after the 360 would be a huge surprise to me.
If this is true, I'll have a tear in my eye as I stroke the the disks of Age of Empires 2 and it's expansion.
Zucas said:
yea well if you've noticed Microsoft Game Studios has been nothing but publishing games not creating them which doesn't bode well for anymore 1st party titles outside of companies they own. So the best case seems unlikely. As for the worst to tell ya the truth at early 2007 on another forum I was talking about how possibly if things didn't go well with MS they'd start dropping some of their developers and exit the gaming industry and stick to the PC software world where they'll only publish games. Of course I thought they would only dropoff Rare and Bungie and I was thinking they'd sell them. Letting Bungie go without sell was a huge surprise to me haha. So maybe MS is looking to get out of the industry I mean it's possible. |
If they were aiming to get out of the industry, would it make sense for them to have just cut prices? I mean, they probably went from profitable to just breaking even/selling at a loss on the Arcade model. It's not impossible, but given all their talk about their long term strategy lately, it would be fairly surreal if they're just about to shut down the whole Xbox experiment.
@Jagged: Bad find. You owe us some happy news now. 
I think M$ is moving to consolidate the game developers to one single entity...hence the new hiring for everything Halo....etc. Culturally, why have these diverse groups working on in-house title, who then feel a yearning to spin-off when they want more freedom, ala Bungie. I think M$ is looking at Nintendo, and is moving to that model FAST!
"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."
- From By Schism Rent Asunder
To think that this time last year Microsoft had 8 1st party studios. If Ensemble is closed then that brings them down to 5 including Xbox Live Productions.
Bungie (Became Independent)
Carbonated Games (Dissolved)
Ensemble Studios (Rumored to be closing)
FASA Interactive (Closed)
Lionhead Studios
Rare
Turn 10 Studios
Wingnut Interactive
This combined with Bizzare Creations getting eaten up by Activision Blizzard as well as BioWare by Electronic Arts does not bode well for Microsoft's game division in the future.
| heruamon said: I think M$ is moving to consolidate the game developers to one single entity...hence the new hiring for everything Halo....etc. Culturally, why have these diverse groups working on in-house title, who then feel a yearning to spin-off when they want more freedom, ala Bungie. I think M$ is looking at Nintendo, and is moving to that model FAST! |
Yeah, I was about to mention M$ recently hiring talent for the some sort of Halo related development. I wonder what the **** is going on in Redmond.
| Seihyouken said: To think that this time last year Microsoft had 8 1st party studios. If Ensemble is closed then that brings them down to 5 including Xbox Live Productions. Bungie (Became Independent) Carbonated Games (Dissolved) Ensemble Studios (Rumored to be closing) FASA Interactive (Closed) Lionhead Studios Rare Turn 10 Studios Wingnut Interactive This combined with Bizzare Creations getting eaten up by Activision Blizzard as well as BioWare by Electronic Arts does not bode well for Microsoft's game division in the future. |
Rare's also rumored to be closing soon after BK's release.
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