This week’s Gaming Flashback has no cake — instead it’s the history of Portal. The guys try to keep the podcast meme-free as they discuss Valve’s first person puzzle platformer.
There’s also non-Portal related news items, too:
Let us know what you think in the Comments section.
Thanks to a screwup with recording, Episode 307 will have to be redone next week. However, this doesn’t mean there won’t be any show.
Instead, the second Dr. Who Special Episode is in its place, with outtakes taken after the show with Jordan, Jennifer and Paul discussing Dr. Who in the past four weeks. In short, they feel the quality is starting to slip.
Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss PAX Prime 2013, then delve into this week’s news, Listener Feedback, and discuss the 1990’s developer Psygnosis.
The news this week includes:
The Question of the Week: “How many times have you purchased a new form factor of a console you already owned?”
Ensemble Studios, owned and operated by Microsoft or, Microsoft Games Studios, has been targed to be dissolved. All employees will find new homes, a large quantity will start a new studio and continue maintaining the later released Halo Wars franchise.
Microsoft has chosen to close the studio as part of their growth plan of Microsoft Games Studios much like FASA was closed in the past. The difference, there is a new landing point for Halo Wars unlike the uncertain future of Shadowrun.
Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.” (gamespot)
Ensemble Studio’s folks will continue to work with Microsoft and will continue to support Halo Wars after its launch. It is important to stress their statement of continuing to support Halo Wars, there is no need to think the project will be done half-assed or without pride as the project will live on with a different studio name.
The only question is… what is causing Microsoft to close down studios with actively working real franchise projects? FASA went down, Bungie was let go on their own and now Ensemble Studios? There has to be something going on here… idea?
I wanted Killer Instinct on the mini SNES.