MGS is still a flagship publishing entity - Phil Spencer

Phil Spencer has told GamesIndustry.biz that Microsoft Game Studios is still a flagship entity in the videogames publishing business, despite the announcement earlier this week that the company was set to close Ensemble Studios.

"Absolutely," he responded to a question on whether or not the publisher still intended to be a key force. "We're as invested in first party studios [as we ever have been], and when you look at the head count numbers - and these aren't things that we share - but we're investing in a big way behind key franchises for us.

"And I'll include Age in that - we're going to invest in Age of Empires in a way that makes sense for the future of how we view a Windows game should be deployed, sold and consumed.

"There's a scale, size and opportunity there that we want to go after and build. And we will do that. And the same thing's true across all our internal studios. I wouldn't say we're redeploying from internal to external resources - our investment in internal first party resources remains very strong."

Spencer was talking in his last interview on UK soil before heading back to the US next week as part of his promotion earlier this year to succeed Shane Kim as head of MGS.

More news from the interview, as well as the interview itself, will be published on GamesIndustry.biz next week.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/mgs-is-still-a-flagship-publishing-entity-phil-spencer