Shane Kim: “Talent at Ensemble wasnt right for Natal”
With the E3 expo coming to a close today and after some very interesting announcements at Microsoft one of these was the revolutionary controller free full body motion capture device called “Natal“. Shane Kim an executive at Microsoft Game Studios discussed in an interview with Venture Beat that they have put significant investment behind the project. I imagine the cost of implementing hardware and software into Project Natal must be very expensive. But what other costs would there be for having this motion free technology. It seems as though to make way for Natal Microsoft’s internal studios Flight Sim and Ensemble Studios were the casualties.
The Venture Beat interview finally demonstrates the financial reasons why Microsoft decided to close its incredibly successful internal studio Ensemble Studios. Quoting from the interview Shane Kim responds:
VB: You cut some studios like Flight Simulator and Ensemble Studios.
SK: We also acquired Big Park Studios. I don’t know how constant the ebb and flow will be. It’s not unidirectional. We made some hard decisions in the past. We made good decisions. We are still committed to first party. The Big Park acquisition should demonstrate that to folks. We were positioning for things like Natal and I don’t think the talent at Ensemble or Flight Simulator were necessarily the right studios for that.
So there you have it – Project Natal is one of the reasons Microsoft thought was better to invest more in than its long standing internal studios. Will it be the right choice? I am confident that the talent at Ensemble Studios could have made things work with Natal. The studio has some industry visionary legends including Bruce Shelley, Graeme Devine, Sandy Petersen not to mention the rest of the team. Some of the prototypes could have been modelled to work fantastically with Natal including the prototype “Agent”.
It is sad to be blogging about the closing of Ensemble Studios again but it is interesting to find out about the thought process behind the decision. Moving forward though we must support all these talented individuals who have formed new studios. No matter what, we will still see great games from these talented people.
You can read the full interview here:
Halo Wars artwork amongst “Into The Pixel” Winners
Congratulations to Corey Butler, Ensemble Studios and Blur who today found out that their image of Professor Anders landing on a flood planet in Halo Wars has been selected in the Top 10 best artwork of 2009. There has been alot of excellent artwork demonstrated in Halo Wars and I am sure you can appreciate that this is a well deserved recognition. You can view the other winning art pieces and an enlarged image of the Halo Wars artwork below:
http://www.intothepixel.com/artwork/2009_contest_winners.asp
Congratulations Corey Butler again!
Age is not forgotten! – New patches for Age of Empires 3
Robot Entertainment has today demonstrated its continued support for the Age of Empires 3 series by releasing a new patch for all three Age 3 games and expansions. I have included a link to the patch notes. The patch should be auto downloaded by your Age client in the next few days. One of the most important things is that the almost rampant double decking glitch has now been fixed – Age players can now rejoice!
Feel free to discuss more in the community forum.
And heres the links to the patch notes:
http://agecommunity.com/downloads/patch_-_1_13.rtf
http://agecommunity.com/downloads/xpatch_-_1_05.rtf
http://agecommunity.com/downloads/ypatch_-_1_02.rtf
Over and out!
Familiar faces amongst the Halo Wars developers play night
The Halo Wars developers play night has been buzzing with excitement as people from Robot Entertainment, Bonfire Studios and other Ex Ensemble people came to play with fans. One of those Ex Ensemble’s was ex community manager “Paragon”. The much missed moderator came out to play with fans as he greeted those on the message boards with:
*the cave door opens*
*a bearded figure of a man walks out blinded by the light*
*He is handed a 360 controller and grunts*
“paragon shall play”
Even though I am vastly out of practice, I will try and pop on for a few matches. My gamer tag is ES Paragon (space between S and P no quotes)
Stick around Paragon!
Hopefully there will be more developer play nights in the future!
Big Huge Games is not closing, picked up by 38 studios
A few months ago I posted that Big Huge Games who co-developed the Age of Empires 3 Asian Dynasties with Ensemble Studios was at risk of being shut down by its parent THQ. Good news now however is that the studio will live on under a new parent company 38 Studios. BHG will not be moving its offices although its not confirmed if there will be employee changes.
I wish them the best of luck under thier new parent. You can find more details here:
The Robots come out to play
The Robots are coming out to play Halo Wars on May 27th from 5-8pm CST (GMT -5)! Its you chance to get tips from the pros and see if they can hold off against your tactics! Needless to say playing anyone at Robot will be a very insightful expierence – if you are on the opposing team.. good luck! These Robots have been playing Halo Wars for over a year!
You’ll need to know the Robot gamertags and ive included these below:
I myself had the lucky privilege of playing with Robot C3PO a few days ago. A very fun game!
You can find the official announcement of the developer games here:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/calendar/gamewithdevelopers/2009/0527-halowars.htm
Designer Justin Rouse talks about Fort Deen iterations
Quick update. The Halo Wars “Fort Deen” map image and information is online complete with a full description from its designer Justin Rouse at Ensemble. Here’s an extract from the page and a link to the full article:
“On this map I love to use Brute commando squads. Since they’re infantry I can put them into the wall towers and block off my enemies ground forces but because of my brute jump packs I can jump back and forth over the walls to get away from danger or to closer to juicy targets coming to shoot my units out of the towers”
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/FortDeen.aspx
Dave Pottinger responds to Halo Wars fans about DLC pricing
There is alot of talk amongst the HaloWars.com community of unhappiness with the DLC pricing at 800 MS points for three brand new game modes. I thought I would quickly add my thoughts on the matter. I think the game modes are alot of fun espcially re-inforcements mode which is great fun online. Its also good to see a change from the rushing trend online with these new modes which require new thinking on ways to win. For 800 MS points its certainly alot of sustained entertainment. You can play lots of games of Halo Wars DLC, but you can only complete say Fable 2 DLC once.
But anyway, enough of me and more of the Lead Designer at Robot. Here’s Dave Pottinger’s light statement on the matter as posted on the Halo Wars forums. Ive added some emphasis as well.
“MS asked us to make some DLC. We chose to do that. We made a proposal back to them with what the DLC contents would be. After some back and forth, they agreed. They set the price. They alone control this. HW is a MS franchise and they have guidelines for how much stuff costs. That said, yes, we knew what the price would be.
Personally, I think the price is fair. It’s clear that you guys do not (overall). We can disagree on that, particularly since no one is forcing you to buy it:) It’s worth pointing out that map packs are easy to figure out. They’re easy to make. They’re especially easy to price. Game modes for a strategy game on the console are less clear-cut. We knew there would be some consternation over the modes coming out as the first pack, but we thought it was something that would be very popular. Time will tell. If there was a mistake made with the pricing, then I’m confident that will bubble up in the pricing analysis.
Overall, the based on what folks are playing right now, I’d say a) the DLC is popular and b) the DLC is doing its “job” in refreshing the feel/community for the game. Someone made the comparison to Horse Armor. That’s an ironic comparison given that, to date, the Horse Armor remains in the top 5 or top 10 “most purchased DLC items” (at least based on the last numbers I saw).
Anyhow, we (and MS, I imagine) have clearly got the feedback on the pricing.”
Robot delivers Halo Wars matchmaking changes in response to feedback
Its great to see that fan feedback is respected by Robot Entertainment who have hours after the DLC’s release already implemented changes based on gamer feedback- thats fantastic. It is now possible to play 2v2 Reinforcements non-party!
I have just played a game myself and it is very fun! I encourage everyone to pick up the DLC and play re-inforcements online. You wont be disappointed!
Here is the word from Aloysius on the homepage of HaloWars.com :
Halo Wars DLC #1 ‘Strategic Options has hit the Xbox Live Marketplace, and fans are getting their first taste of the action. We at Robot feel that the new game modes, Reinforcement, Keep Away and Tug of War are best enjoyed as part of a team, so we put in a lot of team game searches. We realize that this leaves out some fans who do not play team games, so we are introducing a new system to rotate in different searches so that everyone can find a game type they want to play.
Players with the DLC who search for games will see 2v2 Reinforcement (non-team) tonight, and next week we will be rotating in 2 new search types, so that fans can play different 1v1 and 2v2 game types without having to be part of a team. We’ll be watching the forums and gameplay statistics to better align matchmaking with what fans want in future updates.
Check out the new DLC here Halo Wars DLC on Xbox Live Marketplace.
Robot Entertainment – working on a resolution to Halo Wars DLC
Robot Entertainment is working on a resolution to complaints on the Halo Wars forums that most of the new DLC games are not playable online without being in a party. Its being worked on right now infact. Expect a change of game rooms. Have faith in the Robots, they’ll sort it!
