This week’s episode is a little late due to a power outage. However, despite the lack of really interesting news, the crew still finds plenty to chat about.
This week’s news includes:
The Question of the Week is, “What popular game did you play long after its initial release?”
This week is on the short side, though Jonah and Jordan discuss pop culture like Red Letter Media, The Venture Bros. and Cave Johnson’s lemon ranting. There’s no Gaming Podcast or Gaming History, but there’s plenty of Listener Feedback and news items.
The news includes:
No “Question of the Week” – this week is Listener Questions – send ’em in!
Midway’s been around the industry for years, has decided to lay off up to 90 people and cut the Criminal project from their lineup. This is a long term plan of cost reduction by the board of directors to get down costs and keep the company running smoothly.
Their plan seems to be to develop games intelligently, by costing out each project and building what’s needed to make the company profitable without excessive cost. A company always runs best when it’s doing it wisely and looking to reduce overhead, unfortunately a company in a bit of trouble has to let go of employees to get their.
While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway,” said Matt Booty, interim CEO and president of Midway Games Inc.. “We view every game as an investment that must meet certain standards for quality, scheduling, and profitability. Midway remains committed to producing the highest quality entertainment, as evidenced by our strong holiday line-up which includes TNA iMPACT!, Blitz: The League II, and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe starring a team of MK characters and some of the most recognizable DC Comics personalities such as Batman, The Joker, and Superman.” (kotaku)
Hopefully this allows them some breathing room to get out of this sticky situation, we hate to see old names go down in history as failed.
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?
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode. It was intersting and funny as always 🙂 To your question of the week: I Played Portal the first time last year. Of course i completed it very fast, but this was a PC game i played about 10 years after its release 🙂
For Console games, it must be some of the first 6 Mega Man Games … i don´t remember which ones i played as a kid, but of course not all of them. So i decided to play through the first 6 Mega Man games last year 🙂
I like to play all the old games, i missed in my youth, but as you know: now (as an adult) you got the money to buy games, but you dont have the time anymore to play all of them 🙂
Jonah: Archon is a really great game! I loved it as a kid, even i did not understood it at all 🙂 (I am born in 1980, so i was 4 years old, when Archon was released, and i got my first C-64 when i was 8).
So thanks again guys and keep gaming 🙂