Age of Empire: The Is the End

Many of you, on Mac or PC, have been playing the famous saga "Age of Empire" or "Age of Mythology", so keep those games as they are now history and collectors. Indeed, none of them will ever have a new Opus or add-on, as Microsoft decided to shut down the "Ensemble Studio" and reallocate resources to other project, as such game are not part of Microsoft strategy anymore. For sure, such strategy and thinking games might not be the best-seller for the Xbox 360, one need the brain-less shooting games...
Redmond's giant seems to be in trouble for its game division too and its inability to compete with Sony PS3 for the hardcore gamer market, and the Nintendo Wii for the game station dedicated to the family. If you add up relative failure of Vista and Zune, it indeed looks like a rather dark period.
Couple of months ago, the team behind “Halo” decided to leave Microsoft before getting fully swallowed and see their future not in their hands anymore. For sure a good decision that developers of Age of Empire might have thought about it.