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Microsoft: Age of Empires is Safe
by Blake Ellison, Sep 10, 2008 4:15pm PDTThis morning, we reported that Microsoft has emphasized its commitment to PC gaming despite its announcement that it would be closing Age of Empires creator Ensemble Studios.
Shane Kim, Microsoft VP of interactive entertainment, echoed the sentiment and went on to assure worried gamers about the future of the multi-million-selling Age of Empires strategy series. "Microsoft continues to own Age of Empires." Kim explained to Edge. "We're still super excited for the potential for the franchise. The Windows gaming world continues to evolve, and we believe in the future of that property."
Kim also elaborated on the new company that is to be created from the remains of Ensemble. The new studio will be independent and founded by the heads of Ensemble, but Kim promises "we will have an ongoing relationship with that new company" including post-release support for Ensemble's final project, Halo Wars.
Should a new Age of Empires game be on the way, it is unknown what development studio will undertake the effort.
Comments
I don't know what the hell is going on over at Microsoft Game Studios. Ensemble's last full game sold over two million units, and somehow there was no way to make the studio financially feasible? Are you serious? Meanwhile, Rare, one of the biggest wastes of acquisition money this industry has ever seen, at $375 million (!!), surely hasn't come even remotely, vaguely close to fulfilling its financial expectations on a dollar per dollar basis, either compared to Ensemble or otherwise, and yet it seems to have a golden ticket.
This is after FASA, which delivered the commercially- and critically-successful Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, was given the mandate to make Shadowrun some kind of ridiculous showcase for Vista and cross-platform multiplayer, neither of which was necessary and which surely only harmed its prospects, even beyond the controversy over its genre.
A few years ago, Microsoft's internal development was pretty strong and getting stronger, covering a wide variety of genres and delivering well-received titles. Now it's dwindling down to almost nothing, to the point where their big main studios are Rare and Lionhead. I'm looking forward to Fable 2, but man that's bizarre.
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Lionhead is puting out like one game every two year so they are not that important either.
I think they wan't to build up a studio in Redmond, similar to EA's Redwood Campus or Ubisoft Montreal. I think they need to do that to beat Sony's first party teams.
Shane Kim has said in the past that buying developers is very risky, so I guess they are now trying to build up studios from the ground up.
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