Those of you riddled with angst over the fate of Age of Empires had best prepare for an antithetical application of ... Unangst! That's Kevin Unangst, Games for Windows director over at Microsoft. In a brief message posted on the Gamerscore Blog, Unangst has assured point-and-conquer fans that the closure of developer Ensemble Studios doesn't necessarily spell doom for the renowned PC franchise.

"I want to reassure you that Microsoft will still own the Age of Empires intellectual property," he said. "As a company, we're very excited about the future potential for Age of Empires, and as a PC gamer I'm looking forward to what that future holds."

Of course, not everybody is buying into this somewhat formless placation, with one commenter diplomatically venturing, "Go to hell you Microsoft pigs!" Nurse, we're going to need some oinkment for that burn.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/11/mi...ge-of-empires/

Sorry if its a repost.

LOL. It would not be the same without Ensemble.

QFT.

And it's almost a guarantee that we'll never see an Age of Mythology 2, even if they got somebody else to work on the Age franchise.

RIP Ensemble.

:'(

so much potential they closed up the studio.
i wonder if they see potential in the 360

I see only one real reason to integrate ensemble and thats to move focus away from pc forever starting with the next xbox.

i mean, they are making a halo game for 360 and they made a very successful franchise so what more reason do they need to stay open? unless halo wars sucks really bad (probably not) then they should be a profitable studio.

this really feels like one of the final blows for old pc gaming

I'm feeling sad right now..

Ensemble why!!!!!!!!? I hope this does not mean the end to AOE man i grew up on their RTS games :(