Most gamers don’t know much about the game studios that produce their games. Of course, some people are aware of the bigger ones such as Bungie, makers of Halo, EA, makers of Madden, and Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto. However, there are a lot of other companies out there that don’t seem to get the credit that they deserve. One such company is Ensemble Studios, makers of the Age of Empires series and the forthcoming Halo Wars game.

Today it was announced that Microsoft is going to close Ensemble Studios after Halo Wars is finished. Ensemble had a nice run that gave us the Age of Empires series, which sold 20 million games, as well as plenty of other quality RTS titles.

While RTS games are not as popular as they once were, they are still a very important part of PC gaming. It is a shame that Microsoft’s single-minded focus on the Xbox 360 has led them down this path. Once again Microsoft is pruning a quality developer with deep PC roots from their console-only development stable. This is another in what is quickly becoming a list of A-list companies they are letting go of. Bungie, Bioware, and now Ensemble as well as others have all been shut down or sold in the last year.

I hate to say this, but with only three or four years until the next console cycle, can Microsoft afford to sell their big guns, essentially to the competition? Does Microsoft want to see Mass Effect, KoTOR, and Halo on the Playstation or Wii? Of course, Halo is out of the question, but the others are not. Microsoft might be “trimming the fat” as they see it, but I think they are cutting their own throats. They might have soemthing up their sleeve, but I just don’t see what it is. It could be that these companies want to pursue PC-based MMO’s much like Blizzard has done and Microsoft refuses to back them in that, I just don’t know.

What I do know is that Ensemble Studios will be missed. The Age of Empires games are classics and should be revered as such. The only good news is that apparently the leadership team at Ensemble is going to form a new company, so we haven’t heard the last of them, but it is sad to see a great company sacrificed to the Microsoft Xbox strategy.