Yesterday we guessed that Lionhead’s new front page, featuring a headshot of and quote from Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, was perhaps a countdown to next week’s GamesCom. Today’s change on the site’s front page seems to confirm that.
Alan Wake is coming to Xbox 360, that we know. But will it also be coming to the PC? Maybe. Just maybe. But if it does, that’s a decision to be made by Microsoft, not developers Remedy.
Ryan Payton, former assistant producer on Metal Gear Solid 4, has signed on with Microsoft Game Studios to work on future Halo games, Microsoft Game Studios said today, confirming the rumour Kotaku broke last month.
“Microsoft has confirmed the addition of Ryan Payton, formerly of Kojima Productions to Microsoft Game Studios,” said Phil Spencer, in a prepared statement sent to Kotaku. “Payton joins a group of industry heavy hitters to recently arrive at Microsoft Game Studios, including Corrine Yu from Gearbox and Kenneth Scott of id Software, as well as David Wu from Pseudo Interactive and Frank O’Connor, a Bungie veteran. Microsoft Game Studios is thrilled to have such talented people working to develop new and exciting projects within the Halo universe and supporting existing projects from studios like Bungie and Ensemble.”
While the official statement doesn’t go into details about Payton’s job, we’ve been told he will be the creative director for the upcoming Peter Jackson Halo game.
New Halo Helmed by MGS 4 Producer [Kotaku]
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they’d be shuttering renowned developer Ensemble Studios, as soon as they’re done developing Halo Wars. As one of the world’s premier PC and strategy developers, this was sad, sad news. While Microsoft have since issued a public statement outlining the reasons behind the closure, if you’d like, you can click through and read the internal e-mail sent to Microsoft games Studios employees, in which MGS boss Phil Spencer breaks the news to the company at large.
Making an MMO can be hard. You can put years into developing not just the game, but the necessary infrastructure, only to launch it and have it die within weeks. Sure, Blizzard know how to do it, but few other developers have managed. Microsoft certainly tried, and tried twice (Marvel Universe, True Fantasy). They also failed twice, with both projects canned, something Shane Kim takes full responsibility for:
I’ll admit MGS has not had success in the MMO space, and that happened under my leadership, so I take full responsibility. It’s a tough and challenging space that’s evolving all the time – a lot of shifting sands. We haven’t been able to crack the code.
There there Shane, chin up! What do we do when we fall off the horse?
