Microsoft closes ensemble studios, opts for cheaper games

September 23, 1:08 PMGames ExaminerDaniel Nations

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Age of Empires is an RTS classic.

Ensemble Studios, developers of the Age of Empires series, will be closing its doors after the much-anticipated release of Halo Wars, a real-time strategy spin on the popular first person shooter. Microsoft, who acquired the development studio in 2001, made the decision to close the game studio after its current development project is released.

Wired writes that Microsoft wanted to shift their game development dollars into other studios that were less costly to run. Ensemble studios cost more money per developer than other Microsoft game studios.

Which really boils down to: Just because Ensemble Studios created one of the best real-time strategy games of all time, and just because their last full release -- Age of Empires III -- sold over 2 million copies, that's no reason to delay the development cycle in order to put out quality products or for their developers to actually make more money!

This sounds like the death knoll of quality games coming out of Microsoft. Going cheap means less quality and buggier games.