I agree. Who cares that "the Halo Wars Studio" is closing? Now tell me that the Age of Empires studio is closing and that is big news and very sad at that! Is anyone going out to create a newer better game studio?
I was about to say something along those lines too. Even though HW looks fairly fun, Ensemble will always be remembered to me and a lot of my friends as Age of Empires.
No, it doesn't seem odd. I've even worked out a story: You get drugged by this "friend" of yours and are set up for an experiment that ends up changing your sex and you proceed to get raped a lot in the middle of a futuristic war zone. Cortana makes a guest appearance in the only tentacle rape scene, where a virus has infested her and she's controlling a machine with many, well, tentacles.
Now, I just have to contact a Japanese developer/publisher.
What manager thought it would be a good idea to announce, before the product shipped, that -
the product will essentially have no support beyond v1.0;
any coding glitches or problems will probably never come back to haunt any of the developers; and
some of the developers will be fired as soon as the product ships?
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
I thought this gaffe was only a software engineering myth. I'm gonna have to bookmark this post for future reference:)...
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
Not quite. From TFA:
Microsoft called the planned closure a "fiscally-rooted" decision, while noting that a core Ensemble team will go on to form a new studio to provide support for Halo Wars and work on fresh projects.
Sounds more like Microsoft just wanted an excuse to get rid of everyone but the best and start anew.
As a software developer, I have a vested interest in the future of the software along with my employer's future, and take pride in the software I develop, knowing that I can expand and improve it.
Knowing that I will have to technically support the software that I am working on, I put all my effort into designing and implementing it with well-structured, documented code, easy to understand error logs and nice safety catches in case of critical errors.
These measures are taken so as to make my own life easier
Wow, bummer. Guess the penthouse offices and separate elevator were getting too pricey? I'd like to know how many of the true "core" ensemble employees they keep, and how many actually go off to a new venture.
Sounds more like Microsoft just wanted an excuse to get rid of everyone but the best and start anew.
Just think of it as a morale building exercise, and try not to consider that more than half of you will have pink slips waiting on your desks when this meeting is over.
It still leaves an uneasy feeling for everyone involved in the making of the game. However, if you are in the gaming business as an employee, you should accept it as a salary paid contract job since it is heavily project based. While it is common sense, and a common practice, to strip teams after a game is done now-a-days, they were still dumb to announce it.
You just know a product is doomed when it's the last thing those people will ever make, right? Even so, won't the job of the publisher to be to whip the employees into shape, needless of how cruel this is? And might MS provide some sort of continued support, a feature which is pretty dam standard anymore?
"Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch."
The article has additional information about the restructuring of the team.
It shouldn't glitch that much, it is only going to be a 360 game, from what it looks like it's proably not even that taxing on the 360 cpu/gpu wise. The biggest buyss will be the mp cheating/balancing issues, and they will release at least one patch for that.
It is hard to believe that Microsoft is doing anything other than killing off the Xbox one piece at a time.
They let their one big developer Bungie leave to go work on multiplatform titles. The let Bizzare and Bioware leave exclusive Xbox development. They've shutdown other minor firstparty exclusive Xbox developers over the past year or two. Tecmo appears to be going full multiplatform now that Itagaki is gone.
That leaves Microsoft with just Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. Maybe one more.
>Perhaps Microsoft has finally decided they need to stop wasting their time in the console market and will start to turn their attention back to making keyboards and mice.
Dude, your post makes no sense. Why would MS want to stunt the xbox?
They let their one big developer Bungie leave to go work on multiplatform titles.
Bungie wanted to leave. MS allowed them to, kept the rights to Halo, and first right of refusal to Bungee games. It's better this way (for the xbox) -- Bungie remains a happy studio, and they make games for the xbox. The other way around, Bungie employees get pissed and leave, and MS is left with the skeleton.
The let Bizzare and Bioware leave exclusive Xbox development.
They don't get to choose this. Blizzard and Bioware can do whatever they want. MS and Sony usually pay huge sums of money for exclusive titles (on a per-title basis). More and more, they're both deciding it isn't worth it. Everybody wins this way of course -- 'cos more games are available on both platforms. If fact, MS is probably wagering that the Xbox live experience is the differentiator that makes people choose to buy non-exclusive titles on an xbox instead of a ps3. Either way, they've done the math and decided most exclusives aren't worth the price. They still do have exclusive titles when they are important enough (for example, Gears of War II).
They've shutdown other minor firstparty exclusive Xbox developers over the past year or two.
Sources? Anything??
Tecmo appears to be going full multiplatform now that Itagaki is gone.
Repeat after me: MS does not control independant studios, and this is Good Thing anyway.
That leaves Microsoft with just Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. Maybe one more. Compare that to Nintendo who has 10 first party studios. And even worse to Sony who now has 20 or so first party studios.
What's the point of having 20 first party studios if you don't even have 20 total games that are worth playing? I just don't understand your point. Are you trying to say there's a dearts of good titles for the Xbox? I hope you realize how ridiculous that sounds.
It should be obvious why Microsoft has had virtually nothing new to show at game conferences over the past year. Getting 360 ports of PC games isn't going to do anything in the console market - especially now that even mid range PC graphics are far beyond 360 game levels.
??
Remember that the xbox GPU is more powerful than the PS3 CPU. See here for details [ign.com]. It's normal for GPUs in the market to outstrip console GPU performance mid-way through the life of a console. You're trying to make some convoluted argument to support your statement about MS trying to kill the 360, but you're not making much sense.
btw: The new xbox dashboard, netflix "watch it now", gears of war II. Nothing new to show at game conferences over the past year?? There's more, but your claim isn't worth responding to.
Perhaps Microsoft has finally decided they need to stop wasting their time in the console market and will start to turn their attention back to PC gaming.
Do you actually beleive what you just wrote? Look, at this point, I assume you're a PS3 fanboi. That's fine. Why can't you just enjoy your PS3 without dissing the 360? Think about it -- without stiff competition from the xbox, the PS3 itself wouldn't be as awesome as it is. And remember that MS's efforts have brought us the Halo series, GoW, Xbox live. By what yardstick do you think they are wasting their time??
My bad - Bizarre Creations. Of course, the point still stands. Bizarre is owned by Activision. The only thing MS or Sony can do to get exclusive titles from them is to either throw cash at them, or produce the title themselves (like how MS is the producer for GoW and EA Games is the developer). In general, it costs money to get exclusive titles and depending on what's coming down the pipeline, sometimes it just might not be worth it..
This of course would be the reason why often when looking at game available on both platforms the Xbox native game resolution is higher than the PS3... if the Xbox 360 can handle a higher resolution, what does that tell me about the PS3 and how they could have (in your words) "graphics hardware so weak" they can't even keep up with the Xbox?
i.e. pretty much biggest cross platform game released recently: GTA4 native res: Xbox 360=720p, PS3=630P
Never did figure out what they were smoking when they made GTA4 -- the textures look better on the PS3 despite being at a lower native resolution. Weird huh?
At any rate this isn't true of any other games to my knowledge -- Burnout Paradise for example (which recently had its PS3 graphics output updated to include true native 1080i and 480p support).
Native rendered games on the PS3 run at much higher visual quality than anything I've seen on the 360 so far, and I'd rather compare native to native if you don
The 360 is still ahead of the PS3 and since both MS and Sony have managed to convince themselves into believing that Nintendo is in a completely different market they'll think they won. Both MS and Sony will probably keep this futile battle up because they dream of being able to tie all kinds of extra services into their console to make more and more money. Meanwhile Nintendo is pulling out the market from under them but hey, that fad is going to end any day and people will go back to their same-thing-with-
Microsoft called the planned closure a "fiscally-rooted" decision, while noting that a core Ensemble team will go on to form a new studio to provide support for Halo Wars and work on fresh projects.
Though not all employees will be transferred to the new studio, Microsoft plans to find other jobs for as many workers as possible.
They have a full release from Microsoft there too. I thought your post made good points until I read that so you might like that info too.
No: They claim to retain most of the personell and promise ongoing support for products (in the actual M$ statement)
from the article:
"Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios. "
Either way, if I was working there, if they didn't guarantee me a continued job, in writing, I'd be sending my resume out to other companies, and pretty much half assing any work I did on halo wars. I mean, you would be insane not to, right?
The bigger news is the status of Microsoft Game Studios. 1st party titles make the console, more or less. Online is pretty important, sure, and the aesthetics have something to do with it, I guess, but gamers aren't (complete) idiots. That's right, we're devoted fanboys. So let's be clear - nothing makes a console more attractive than a strong, non-multiplatform game. Like MGS? Sony has a console they'd like to sell you. Halo fan? Microsoft looks pretty nice, eh?
You're correct. MS just doesn't have the corporate mentality to make games. I know some pretty bright and creative people in Microsoft's internal game division that have long since fled. I've had dealings with them as a 3rd party studio. They can be a great publisher (you really just need a lot of money for that, and a willingness to go the distance to make a great product), so long as they stay far, far away from any sort of decision making about the game design itself. But unless the studio has quite
Microsoft now says that it will shut down developer Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires) following the end of work on the company's upcoming RTS Halo Wars.
People use AoE as a generic term but there were several releases of which I loved AoE, AoE2: The Rise of Kings and Age of Mythology. AoM was one of the best selling RTSes for a good time (and so were the AoE* titles).
It's a shame that the staff is mostly being let go. Who's next? Bungie?
Studios that have recently left Microsoft for one reason or another in the last 12 months:
FASA (Shadowrun, Crimson Skies, Mech Warrior, Mech Commander) Bungie (H A L O, Marathon) Ensemble (Halo Wars, Age of Empires, Age of Mythology) Hired Gun (Halo 2 Vista)
Mod submitter troll (Score:5, Informative)
parent post is a troll (Score:1, Funny)
Microsoft was just purging its useless-eaters.
We have ways for making people like you disappear also. [youtube.com]
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I was about to say something along those lines too. Even though HW looks fairly fun, Ensemble will always be remembered to me and a lot of my friends as Age of Empires.
AoE (Score:1)
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They are going to get one last chance after Halo Wars. And they are going to call it "Final Fantasy" because it may be their last game ever.
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Oh gods... Then 20 years from now, we'll be dealing with Androgynous spartans with squeaky voices and planet-killer size guns...
Halo Wars? (Score:4, Funny)
Halo Dating Sim! (You know you want to.)
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They could have at LEAST spent more than five minutes on the name. Even Halo RTS would be more creative!
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Re:Halo Wars? (Score:5, Funny)
The Halos
Sailor Halo
Need for Halo
Super Halo Brothers
Parent
Re:Halo Wars? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Halo Kart! (Score:4, Funny)
We could go on all day... [vgboxart.com]
Parent
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And Halo: Fit, work out with Master Chief. I don't think anybody mentioned Guitar Halo either.
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Now, I just have to contact a Japanese developer/publisher.
You're doing it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
What manager thought it would be a good idea to announce, before the product shipped, that -
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
I thought this gaffe was only a software engineering myth. I'm gonna have to bookmark this post for future reference :) ...
- David Stein
Re:You're doing it wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
Not quite. From TFA:
Microsoft called the planned closure a "fiscally-rooted" decision, while noting that a core Ensemble team will go on to form a new studio to provide support for Halo Wars and work on fresh projects.
Sounds more like Microsoft just wanted an excuse to get rid of everyone but the best and start anew.
Parent
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As a software developer, I have a vested interest in the future of the software along with my employer's future, and take pride in the software I develop, knowing that I can expand and improve it.
Knowing that I will have to technically support the software that I am working on, I put all my effort into designing and implementing it with well-structured, documented code, easy to understand error logs and nice safety catches in case of critical errors.
These measures are taken so as to make my own life easier
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Wow, bummer. Guess the penthouse offices and separate elevator were getting too pricey? I'd like to know how many of the true "core" ensemble employees they keep, and how many actually go off to a new venture.
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'a "fiscally-rooted" decision' has a different meaning in Oz.
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Just think of it as a morale building exercise, and try not to consider that more than half of you will have pink slips waiting on your desks when this meeting is over.
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RTFA
From article:
"Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch."
The article has additional information about the restructuring of the team.
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MS Killing Off Xbox? (Score:1, Informative)
It is hard to believe that Microsoft is doing anything other than killing off the Xbox one piece at a time.
They let their one big developer Bungie leave to go work on multiplatform titles.
The let Bizzare and Bioware leave exclusive Xbox development.
They've shutdown other minor firstparty exclusive Xbox developers over the past year or two.
Tecmo appears to be going full multiplatform now that Itagaki is gone.
That leaves Microsoft with just Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. Maybe one more.
Compare that to Nintendo
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Fixed that for you.
Re:MS Killing Off Xbox? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, your post makes no sense. Why would MS want to stunt the xbox?
They let their one big developer Bungie leave to go work on multiplatform titles.
Bungie wanted to leave. MS allowed them to, kept the rights to Halo, and first right of refusal to Bungee games. It's better this way (for the xbox) -- Bungie remains a happy studio, and they make games for the xbox. The other way around, Bungie employees get pissed and leave, and MS is left with the skeleton.
The let Bizzare and Bioware leave exclusive Xbox development.
They don't get to choose this. Blizzard and Bioware can do whatever they want. MS and Sony usually pay huge sums of money for exclusive titles (on a per-title basis). More and more, they're both deciding it isn't worth it. Everybody wins this way of course -- 'cos more games are available on both platforms. If fact, MS is probably wagering that the Xbox live experience is the differentiator that makes people choose to buy non-exclusive titles on an xbox instead of a ps3. Either way, they've done the math and decided most exclusives aren't worth the price. They still do have exclusive titles when they are important enough (for example, Gears of War II).
They've shutdown other minor firstparty exclusive Xbox developers over the past year or two.
Sources? Anything??
Tecmo appears to be going full multiplatform now that Itagaki is gone.
Repeat after me: MS does not control independant studios, and this is Good Thing anyway.
That leaves Microsoft with just Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. Maybe one more. Compare that to Nintendo who has 10 first party studios. And even worse to Sony who now has 20 or so first party studios.
What's the point of having 20 first party studios if you don't even have 20 total games that are worth playing? I just don't understand your point. Are you trying to say there's a dearts of good titles for the Xbox? I hope you realize how ridiculous that sounds.
It should be obvious why Microsoft has had virtually nothing new to show at game conferences over the past year. Getting 360 ports of PC games isn't going to do anything in the console market - especially now that even mid range PC graphics are far beyond 360 game levels.
??
Remember that the xbox GPU is more powerful than the PS3 CPU. See here for details [ign.com]. It's normal for GPUs in the market to outstrip console GPU performance mid-way through the life of a console. You're trying to make some convoluted argument to support your statement about MS trying to kill the 360, but you're not making much sense.
btw: The new xbox dashboard, netflix "watch it now", gears of war II. Nothing new to show at game conferences over the past year?? There's more, but your claim isn't worth responding to.
Perhaps Microsoft has finally decided they need to stop wasting their time in the console market and will start to turn their attention back to PC gaming.
Do you actually beleive what you just wrote? Look, at this point, I assume you're a PS3 fanboi. That's fine. Why can't you just enjoy your PS3 without dissing the 360? Think about it -- without stiff competition from the xbox, the PS3 itself wouldn't be as awesome as it is. And remember that MS's efforts have brought us the Halo series, GoW, Xbox live. By what yardstick do you think they are wasting their time??
Parent
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> They don't get to choose this. Blizzard and Bioware can do whatever they wan
Bizzare Creations, NOT Blizzard.
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Re:MS Killing Off Xbox? (Score:4, Interesting)
This of course would be the reason why often when looking at game available on both platforms the Xbox native game resolution is higher than the PS3... if the Xbox 360 can handle a higher resolution, what does that tell me about the PS3 and how they could have (in your words) "graphics hardware so weak" they can't even keep up with the Xbox?
i.e. pretty much biggest cross platform game released recently: GTA4 native res: Xbox 360=720p, PS3=630P
Parent
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Never did figure out what they were smoking when they made GTA4 -- the textures look better on the PS3 despite being at a lower native resolution. Weird huh?
At any rate this isn't true of any other games to my knowledge -- Burnout Paradise for example (which recently had its PS3 graphics output updated to include true native 1080i and 480p support).
Native rendered games on the PS3 run at much higher visual quality than anything I've seen on the 360 so far, and I'd rather compare native to native if you don
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The 360 is still ahead of the PS3 and since both MS and Sony have managed to convince themselves into believing that Nintendo is in a completely different market they'll think they won. Both MS and Sony will probably keep this futile battle up because they dream of being able to tie all kinds of extra services into their console to make more and more money. Meanwhile Nintendo is pulling out the market from under them but hey, that fad is going to end any day and people will go back to their same-thing-with-
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Maybe it was the manager who found out the programmers were sleeping with his wife?
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From the shacknews article above:
They have a full release from Microsoft there too. I thought your post made good points until I read that so you might like that info too.
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Yes: what you say is probably true in effect.
No: They claim to retain most of the personell and promise ongoing support for products (in the actual M$ statement)
from the article: "Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios. "
I realize the trustworthin
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Either way, if I was working there, if they didn't guarantee me a continued job, in writing, I'd be sending my resume out to other companies, and pretty much half assing any work I did on halo wars. I mean, you would be insane not to, right?
Suggestion (Score:3, Funny)
They need to make a game actually called Red Ring [today.com], to follow up their earlier hit Blue Screen [uncyclopedia.org].
Duke Nukem Forever? (Score:2)
We're closing the studio as soon as this game is done. Try to reach the deadline please.
Executive logic continues to elude me.
That's not the real story here (Score:1)
The bigger news is the status of Microsoft Game Studios. 1st party titles make the console, more or less. Online is pretty important, sure, and the aesthetics have something to do with it, I guess, but gamers aren't (complete) idiots. That's right, we're devoted fanboys. So let's be clear - nothing makes a console more attractive than a strong, non-multiplatform game. Like MGS? Sony has a console they'd like to sell you. Halo fan? Microsoft looks pretty nice, eh?
Well, the problem with this news isn't that E
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You're correct. MS just doesn't have the corporate mentality to make games. I know some pretty bright and creative people in Microsoft's internal game division that have long since fled. I've had dealings with them as a 3rd party studio. They can be a great publisher (you really just need a lot of money for that, and a willingness to go the distance to make a great product), so long as they stay far, far away from any sort of decision making about the game design itself. But unless the studio has quite
Bad title on /. (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft now says that it will shut down developer Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires) following the end of work on the company's upcoming RTS Halo Wars.
People use AoE as a generic term but there were several releases of which I loved AoE, AoE2: The Rise of Kings and Age of Mythology. AoM was one of the best selling RTSes for a good time (and so were the AoE* titles).
It's a shame that the staff is mostly being let go. Who's next? Bungie?
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Bungie left Microsoft about a year ago to become an independent studio again, fortunately.
FASA Ensemble Bungie Hired Gun (Score:2, Interesting)
Studios that have recently left Microsoft for one reason or another in the last 12 months:
FASA (Shadowrun, Crimson Skies, Mech Warrior, Mech Commander)
Bungie (H A L O, Marathon)
Ensemble (Halo Wars, Age of Empires, Age of Mythology)
Hired Gun (Halo 2 Vista)
Any others?
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>H A L O
Hi, you misspelled Halo. Not sure why.
No MS RTS? (Score:2)
Sounds to me more that they are shutting down typical PC gaming like some forms of RTS, and aiming for a more consoleable kind of games.
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Pussy Nazi Sez
No pussy for YOU!
Ha, right, because it's sooooo easy to picture you anonymously trolling on Slashdot during orgy breaks.
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