I wonder if Microsoft is killing internal development or in the process of reshaping a new business model... If the latter then of the two possibilities which would require the dissolving of this development group...

Online boxes or Wii co-opt boxes...

all they will have left now is rare.

They are being let go, can't someone else pick them up then? They are (as they have said themselves) a profitable enterprise...

O_O did they get rid of ACES, Lionhead, Turn 10, Wingnut Interactive, and Xbox Live Productions as well?

without their profitable games....

Age of empires conquerors account for about 70% of my time playing games on my PC , it'll be slightly sad knowing the creator of one of my favourite games don't exist .

Of course he isn't happy they just disbanded his development studio. Is he supposed to do back flips of joy. MS is obviously focusing more on the console market as far as gaming goes and while I disagree with the decision, Ensemble's PC focus is most likely what did them in.

It's not that simple. Of the people who made the Ensemble team, some will go to work in other sections of Microsoft, others will leave for other game studios, and some may band together to form a new startup, without any of Ensemble's old IPs or code, as LOL MATURE has noted.

These people may go on to do very good work in other places in the industry, but it will be with new teams. Their old team cohesion will be shattered due to the scattering effect an action like this has.

It's too bad. Microsoft has basically destroyed an intangible asset for no apparent gain. You'd think that a big player in the tech sector would be more aware that people, skills, and intellectual property are the only real assets in this sector. They may keep the intellectual property, but they're going to lose some of the skills and all of the teamwork in Ensemble.

"And third, games those studios are expected to deliver in the next few years are expected to be more strategic and profitable to the company than anything we would be finishing after Halo Wars."


I read that and thought to myself "is MS going to try and go in a different direction? Maybe a more casual one?"

I hope not. MS is the bastion of the hardcore.

What I find idiotic about these threads is the number of poster lambasting Microsoft for this, and yet when I look at their game collections I do not see a Xbox 360 in their list. Microsoft has to be more competitive to make their product succeed. Thus they have to make difficult financial decisions. Do you think it was easy for them to make this decision.

They knew Ensemble could make them a lot of money on the PC. However they need to focus on their console. Ensemble was probably not going to help them there, and the genre is not a good genre for consoles. So they had to dissolve the studio. Yes it is tragic, but for Microsoft it might also have been necessary.

The reality is this for all your griping you did fail to support Ensemble. You failed to support the gaming group of its parent company. When you fail to do that you make things like this happen all the more often. Were the 360 five million more units sold right now this would probably not have happened. Microsoft would not feel a pressing need to do this, and your favorite studio would have a future.

Not to say you still have no recourse. Does anyone remember the New Coke debacle. Now if you are really serious buy Microsoft's hardware. Order their latest game, and write Microsoft a letter about you wanting them to change their position. I guarantee you if enough people write in, and Microsoft sees decent reservations for Ensembles latest game they would feel compelled to change their position. You do have the power to change this if you really do care.

Which a great many members in this community do not. Many of them will say they do, but that did not get them into the retailer to buy the 360 to play the latest game from Ensemble. How were you going to support this developer if you were not going to do this in the first place. You should take this as a lesson this is what happens to studios when their fans do not support them. They get the axe.

You can sit in the corner and bitch, or you can try to do something about what is happening. Read those comments as a call for help there is still a few months left to save this studio. You can do that by opening your wallet and speaking out. Microsoft listens to money. Put your money where your mouth is, and make it known. That is how you get a company to change its mind.