Awesome Radical Gaming

Microsoft has officially confirmed that it will be closing down it’s eternal developer Ensemble Studios. Ensemble Studios is probably best known for their real time strategy Age of Empires games, as well as the upcoming Xbox 360 Halo Wars. Halo Wars is still scheduled for release, Ensemble will be shut down once the game comes out sometime early next year. Additionally, many of the “leadership” team from Ensemble will be forming a new development house, and they have entered into talks regarding supporting Halo Wars after it launches.

“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.”

MGS = Microsoft Game Studios, not Metal Gear Solid, I think. Maybe. Anyway, not awesome, the Age of Empires games were always fun. Halo Wars…I’m not sure what I think yet, the screen shots haven’t really done anything for me, but who knows.

[ via Gamestop ]

I’m excited about Halo Wars, but I’m worried about the controls. Every single console RTS game I’ve played just hasn’t worked for me, it just seems like a mouse and keyboard are perfect for RTS while game controllers fail miserably. Hopefully Ensemble will get the controls just right because I really want this game to be good, a Halo RTS game is just too radical.

Holy shit, this is great news. At the Microsoft E3 conference, it was officially announced by Square Enix president Yoichi Wada that Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360, and should be released alongside the PS3 version. That’s totally awesome…but I guess it sucks for Sony that’s it’s no longer exclusive.

Also, Star Ocean will be out Spring 2009, which is great. Also, the Last Remnant will be out on 360 first this holiday season.

[ via E3, IGN ]

There’s a trailer after the link…

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It hasn’t been announced yet, but some screen shots have been leaked for Viva Pinata 2. Microsoft is expected to announce the game on Tuesday at the Spring Showcase. Viva Pinata was pretty awesome, can’t wait for the second one. Also, once of the shots seems to show two cursors on the screen, maybe there will be some two player action going on. More screen shots below…
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This week SquareTrade, a warranty firm, released a report indicating that the Xbox 360 has a 16.4 percent failure rate. This number was based on a sample group of 1,000 warranties. Microsoft has responded to IGN about they report and says they are unfamiliar with this “SquareTrade” company and have not seen the report…

“Microsoft does not comment on hardware failure rates [emphasis by Microsoft], nor do we comment on speculation,” Microsoft spokesman Joe DiMiero told IGN in an e-mail message today. “We have not seen the report, and are unfamiliar with the agency that filed it. Based on the enthusiast community’s feedback yesterday, the methodology of this report is suspect.”

Honestly, if I was Microsoft I’d take the 16% failure rate and run with it. I would have thought it was higher. Almost every single person I know with an Xbox 360 has seen it broken in one way or another. In fact, my step brother’s 360 just broke, for the second time, this week.

Also, some interesting points about the comment, to me:

- Why not comment on the failure rate if it’s lower? Wouldn’t you want to save face?
- Just because they don’t know the company means the report is invalid?
- They questioned the methodology of the report based on “community feedback”. What does that mean? The only reason they are questioning the methodology is some random person sent them feedback?

Today Microsoft updated the Xbox 360, adding…83 new Xbox games to it’s backwards compatibility list. I hope I counted that right. They still didn’t add Beyond Good and Evil, so I guess I’m never going to be able to play that game. Hey, at least we got NHL 2005, I’m sure tons of people have been dying to play that on the 360. Here’s the whole list…
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So it seems that Mass Effect is still on track for a November release after the EA buyout. I might have cried if not. For real. Microsoft has confirmed the release date will be unchanged, but had some grim news about the sequels: (more…)