The biggest news of the week, at least for me, was the Ensemble Studios closure. I was wondering why Microsoft closed one of the most prestigious developers ever with a series that sold over 20 million titles. It didn't really make any sense seeing how they made a commericially successful game 2 years ago (age of empires 3 which sold 3 million WW), and going to make a very successful game halo wars. Why were they dispersed and forced to close? There are certainly many developers of less calibur, lionshead studios for example, that made games that were financally and critically worst. So why did Microsoft Game Studio decide not to close them? The only explainations I could think of were few to none. The only explaination that has no reputible explaination is that they closed them and recreated another studio that was still 1st party. This doesn't make any sense because the developer are so famous that their name sells products. Ensemble Studios regardless of what game they make or what quality it is, the game would would sell hundreds of thousands. This scenario makes no sense whatever, and is not likely to be the case.
Then I thought about it more, and came up with this conclusion, that Microsft Studios closed ensemble in order to control the studios focus on console gaming. This made some sense to me seeing how Ensemble Studios was mainly a PC RTS studio. But then I thought about it more and how it didn't make much sense. Blizzard was mostly a rts developer but, decided to make World of Warcraft which was a great success. So that couldn't make any sense at all. Ensemble Studios most likely could make a quality game in any genre.
Then I came to my final conclusion, which seems like the most logical one. Because Ensemble Games has been working on Halo Wars, they have a lot of art assets, textures, and other materials in order to make a game in the halo universe. Seeing how Microsft Game Studios just hired a few people from other highly established studios to make peter jackson halo project, Microsoft needed extra resources to hurry up the development time. In this instance, Microsoft Game Studios had a company already making a game in that universe. So, in order to make the game have a possible early 2010, winter 2009 date, they decided to relocate some of the ensemble "core team", and fire the ones that refuse. A rather draconian decision, but the decision that would give them the most money out of their game development team.
As I stated, this is all just a hypothesis, but it saddens me that a quality development team was closed. It makes me bitter, and worried seeing how there are other developers that make quality games but don't have tons of success. Team Ico, double fine studios, silicon knights, and quantic dreams all have tons of talent but never really made a million seller. Hopefully the publisher won't relocate the developers in order to make a few extra dollars.
Former Deviation Games developers have formed a new studio at Sony Interactive Entertainment in order to work on a brand new PlayStation IP.
Well that's an awesome and very surprising turnaround. Cheers to the new studio and what they'll build!
That's..... confusing, so shut down but just reformed and same employer 🤔 sounds like pretty much what happened to Japan Studio basically just being rebranded as Asobi
It is odd one I don't know how business deals work or the law of that kind of stuff. But is it possible Sony reached out and said hey we want you apart of Sony but don't want to purchase you for what ever reason. How about use disband and we will open a studio and hire you guys type of thing. Is that even possible?
These days Xenoblade is one of Nintendo’s bigger franchises – at least when it comes to RPGs – but that wasn’t always the case. The first entry came out in English more than a year after its Japanese launch, and that was for European fans only.
Would've been yet another whack move on Nintendo. I'm glad they did. It's one of the few games I got the switch for.
I guess Nintendo forgets how boosting sales numbers work. Why lock a game to a certain region or certain regions? You want sales number then flood the market and release the game in every region.
I just don't understand why companies enjoy locking software behind such specific things. Imagine if Minecraft was only available for Xbox 360 and only North America and never again on anything else..
WTMG's Kyle Nicol: "Heading Out combines genres and styles which might sound incompatible at first glance, but did so in a very interesting manner, resulting in a truly unique roguelike experience. I, for one, really liked the presentation as well, with its slick visuals and soundtrack. It’s not entirely perfect, as the driving could have been more polished, and the pop-in glitches really took me out of the experience at times. That being said, it’s a game unlike any other out there, which wlll definitely keep you engaged through a good few runs."
Indeed,Microsoft have made yet another Wrong Turn.It is rumored that the decision to Shut Down Ensemble Studios was a result of witnessing the Failure of Too Human,that is;Microsoft invested more than 70 Million USDollars in the Too Human Trilogy-expecting the work from Silicon Knights to deliver both a strong Critical Reception and Strong Retail Sales.
What happened was the exact opposite;Too Human bombed everywhere,thus prompting Microsoft to take a Realistic look at the Quality of their Exclusive titles in the pipeline.
To be Frank,after Bungie left Microsoft,it was clear there was an Internal Struggle going on at their Game Division.It's now even more clear,that the Struggle is leading to Loss of Jobs and Microsoft-Only Studios moving to Multi-Platform development.
I have pointed this out OVER and OVER again.
Microsoft USE internal developers. They don't CARE about them, seriously, they don't. They make games and NOTHING else according to MS.
They don't care for internal staff and third party developers.
This has happened for years and was its most evident on the XBOX with Oddworld Inhabitants being dropped off being published by MS and got no marketing from EA because of the sudden jolt. Seen OI lately? Nope. That's one helluva creative developer off the map after such a long time of being king.
Next Digital Anvil (Freelancer) got the chop shortly after being acquired because of the failure of Brute Force.
Later this gen we got FASA studios (Crimson Skies) being closed down due to Shadowrun not performing so well.
Its just a case of wham bam, thank you mam. I know this happens to other big publishers, but its seriously rare with internal developers of console manufacturers.
When was the last time Nintendo or Sony closed off a internal team? Take Sony's internal teams they don't always make brilliant AAA huge selling games, Studio Liverpool completely messed up with Wipeout Fusion on the PS2, did they close down? No.
Studio Cambridge have had a few bad games in the past since Medievil and haven't made anything amazing since really, are they closed down? No.
You name Team Ico? Have they closed down? No. Because they have IDENTITY, they separate developers from other developers and even though quite a lot of SCE have been acquired they have kept their individual identities and reputations; Studio Liverpool is the old Psygnosis we knew on the Amiga and PSone's early years. Studio Cambridge is basically Millennium Interactive who made James Pond of all things!
Naughty Dog are the same people that they were all the way back from Crash Bandicoot and are mainly delivering the same as they proved strong with back then, unique artistic design, flair, detail, animation and strong narratives through Crash to Jak to Uncharted. You can tell you are playing a ND game right from the intro screens and detail put into the game.
Insomniac aren't actually first party, but they more or less are and follow suit of what ND established in quality, design and gaming.
And the shocking thing is MS expect to create new teams and kill developers will a reputation, legacy and identity.
There's no way I think this is right.
Gremlin (Zool, Lotus Turbo Challenge) were lost due to Infogrammes and were rescattered only to be closed shortly afterwards, EA tried resorting Bullfrog and Westwood Studios and lost them both, forever, even EA admits that was wrong, its been said recently.
Shiny Entertainment (EWJ, MDK, Wild9, Messiah) was bought by Atari and suddenly starting losing all identity because of making film licenced games instead of original IPs like when with Interplay and then sold on to Foundation 9 only to merge into Double Helix with The Collective...to make the new Silent Hill which possibly if 'flops' will be closed down again due to the large franchise they are handling.
See what happens? Good, quirky, original developers are lost forever, the spirit gone and it only remains in past games. I will never see games from the above again, because of business separating talent into smaller teams and breaking a well oiled machine in order to save cost or just to pick core members with talent expecting everything to work fine afterwards.
This isn't the way to do things.
Notice everyone is jumping out of being internal teams of MS recently and even resorting to buying their selves out and finding new publishers, why?
The past and fear.
I love ensemble studios. They've been responsible for some of the most-played strategy games of all time!
Seriously....what the f*ck is wrong with Microsoft?