Earlier in the month the industry was shocked when rumors circulating about the closure of famed-RTS developer Ensemble Studios turned out to be accurate. Having finally broken his silence on the situation, Ensemble Studios founder Bruce Shelley outlined his take on the matter on Ensemble's blog last night."I believe we thought we were immune to shut-down talk because our published games have done so well and have been so profitable," Shelley wrote. "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."
According to Shelley, Microsoft outlined a number of reasons why the studio had been selected to close but at the end of the day the bottom line is the bottom line. "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."
As previously announced, the outgoing development house will close its doors after the Xbox 360 exclusive Halo Wars releases in 2009 and members of the team will form a new company signed to maintain content for the game. Shelley has confirmed he will not be joining the new company formed after Ensemble Studios closes its doors and maintains the studio is "very disappointed" in Microsoft's decision. We agree.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-23-2008 @ 11:23AM
Gemini Ace said...
Whoa, hottie alert!
Reply
9-23-2008 @ 4:17PM
dark_inchworm said...
You made me laugh out loud. For serious.
+1
9-23-2008 @ 11:41AM
Scott said...
Totally looks like Bill Gates.... supersized!
Reply
9-23-2008 @ 12:04PM
psychohog said...
It should have been EA.
Reply
9-23-2008 @ 12:05PM
Boff said...
Well I hope the rest of the team manage to find work or better still, form a new studio.
Ensemble have done some quality titles over the years.
Are things that bad financially that they can't become independent again?
Reply
9-23-2008 @ 1:36PM
Xoviet chiK said...
From Shelly's Blog:
"Studio head Tony Goodman has a plan to start a new independent studio following the end of ES and a number of the existing ES employees have been offered a position in this company. He felt he had to get a plan for that in place, even though it will not being operating until after ES closes down, so that all employees can know where they stand and begin making plans for their futures. I believe the spirit and mission of ES will be carried forward in this new company if enough of the key leaders agree to take part, which I expect to happen. There has been no announcement about what the new studio will be working on when it gets going."
9-24-2008 @ 11:41AM
FluXs said...
I dont understand why they Microsoft are 'closing' them down, just to re-launch them (the dev team) under a new banner. wtf
Reply