A couple of weeks ago the games industry was shocked when Microsoft confirmed the upcoming closure of its Dallas based Ensemble Studios. Today the official Ensemble web site has posted up a blog post from its founder Bruce Shelley who gives his first public comments about the closing of the Age of Empires developer.Shelley admits that the Ensemble team "remains very disappointed" that Microsoft is closing the studio, saying, "I believe we thought we were immune to shut-down talk because our published games have done so well and have been so profitable. Plus we felt we had built a really stable (low-turnover), talented, hard-working, and creative team, which is not easy to do. We thought we were among the best studios in the world, and that may be true, but we don't fit in the future plans of MGS as an internal studio so we're out."
While Shelley said Microsoft gave them several reasons for the decision the bottom line is money, saying, "The new leadership of the game group at Microsoft has a new plan for making the game group consistently profitable, especially over the next few crucial years, and we are the odd group out."
The developer is currently working on finishing the Xbox 360 exclusive game Halo Wars which Shelley stated is expected to be completed by the end of the year. As previously announced a number of Ensemble team members plan to start a new independent game studio following Ensemble's closing but Shelley states, "I do not expect to be part of the new company formed after ES is shut down." He does not mention what he has planned after Ensemble has closed its doors.
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This still doesn't make sense.Posted at 6:13PM on Sep 22nd 2008 by Sokkratez