[Falcon]

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6197465.html

Confirmation has come fast in regard to rumors surfacing earlier today that Microsoft would be closing its internal developer Ensemble Studios upon the completion of sci-fi real-time strategy game Halo Wars. In a statement issued today, Microsoft confirmed that Ensemble will be shut down once the Xbox 360-exclusive RTS set in the best-selling Halo franchise ships out early next year.

"The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars," the publisher said in a statement. "This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s talent or the quality of Halo Wars--in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game."

Though Microsoft will close the studio, Ensemble has plans to soldier on. As part of today's statement, Microsoft said that Ensemble's "leadership team" will form a new development house and has already entered into an agreement with the publisher to continue supporting Halo Wars post-launch, "as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios."

Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, "This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible."

As noted earlier today, the Age of Empires brand has sold more than 20 million units since the first installment debuted on the PC in 1997. According to the NPD Group, Age of Empires III for the PC has sold 1.15 million units in the US alone through July 2008, with The Warchiefs expansion tallying nearly 305,000 more. (The second expansion, Asian Dynasties, was developed by Rise of Nations creators Big Huge Games.)

Yikes, don't know what to say. Age of Empires was my first RTS game that I played and I still do along with Age of Empires 2. What do you guys think about this?

[Titan]

Oh ****... enseble studios made the only good RTS games i've ever played.

[General Battuta]

It bothers me that it has nothing at all to do with the quality of the games they're making. And Ensemble's products all sold well.

It feels so arbitrary and high-handed.

[Colonol Dekker]

Fiscal is as fiscal does. Can't argue with finances. Weird though because microsoft is like the ultimate financial body on the freaking planet. I think they should have just rebranded.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm not sad to see them go. They were a vast mistake, a revolution that should have been put down. I grew up with C&C, Red Alert, Starcraft. Age of Empires was, compared to these classics, quite poorly designed and thought out. The mechanics were obscenely simple for what they were attempting to cover. The unit cap was insultingly, stupidly small, both on its own and again for what they were attempting to cover. All it had going for it was that it was 3D, and it was really very good 3D at that. Other titles in the series were better but never really recovered from all the damage the first one did. Having followed Halo Wars fairly closely, it doesn't seem it's going to do any better, just tack on successful elements from other games in an attempt to shore itself up.

Let them die. Success does not equal compentence, or good games.

[Thor]

I haven't been impressed by an AoE games since 2.  i do hope Halo Wars is decent though....

<warms up Xbox 360, gets disgusted by lack of mouse....> hrm....Hope its freaking awesome....

[Mongoose]

I personally thought Age of Mythology was frickin' awesome, though I have little to no RTS experience to compare that to.  Age of Empires 2 would have been fun if I had managed to complete any of the singleplayer campaigns...which I didn't.  In any case, it seems utterly ridiculous to shut down a widely acclaimed and largely successful internal development studio.  I'm sure a lot of publishers would kill for their resume of hits.

[Colonol Dekker]

I really really really liked making an army of Anubites. That was great fun. I felt like The Scorpion King.

[Marcus Vesper]

Oh ****... enseble studios made the only good RTS games i've ever played.

Then you really need to pick up the Dawn of War series, I didn't realize how much fun I wasn't having playing other RTS games until I played Dawn of War.  DOW is the reason I've essentially stopped caring about Starcraft; it's just that much more awesome.

And the sequel?  I literally can't express how much I want to play that game right now.

Burn the heretic.
Kill the Mutant.
Purge the unclean.