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Flight Sim Studio Finished

Kris Graft's picture

By Kris Graft

January 23, 2009

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Microsoft confirmed to Edge on Friday the closure of its internal Aces Studio, which is responsible for the Flight Simulator series.

The closure comes just months after the September 2008 announcement that Microsoft would be shuttering another internal dev house, Ensemble Studios, known for Age of Empires and the upcoming Halo Wars strategy games.

A rep said in an e-mail, “Following our annual strategy review process, IEB is making adjustments within our business to align our people against our highest priorities. One specific change is we are implementing is the closure of the Aces Studio, which was responsible for the Flight Simulator franchise."

Microsoft has closed or separated itself from numerous studios during the current hardware generation. Aside from Ensemble and Aces, the company also closed down Shadowrun developer FASA and Freelancer developer Digital Anvil. Halo-maker Bungie split from owner Microsoft in 2007, returning to independence.

Word of the studio's closure first appeared on the website Gamasutra. A blog post from ex-Aces developer Phil Taylor, who left the studio for Intel in October 2008, stated that all but six people were fired from Aces. Remaining members will perform an "orderly shutdown and service existing contracts." He said around 100 people were employed there.

The rep added that Microsoft still plans to release more flying games, but offered no further details.

"Regarding the future of Flight Simulator, all we’re announcing at this time is that we are committed to flying games. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing to announce around Flight Simulator specifically at this time.”

Thom's picture
On January 26th Thom said:

I hope Flight Simulator lives on, at least in terms of quality. My dad is part of a flying club, and every member uses FS to practice when they can't actually be flying. Considering there are clubs like that all over the country, I'm surprised that the games didn't sell better.

toadwarrior's picture
On January 24th toadwarrior said:

Yet another genre dying and gaming becomes smaller.

grognard66's picture
On January 24th grognard66 said:

So much for the Sony conspiracy theorists on this site who claim that MS only created the 360 as a Trojan Horse to get Windows into everyone's houses. With the closure of Ensemble and now ACES, MS has completely abandoned internal PC game development. Very sad. I don't think the last release did very well as the flight sim genre has all but disappeared, but it is still sad to witness the passing of an era. Frankly, I can understand this closure far more than the Ensemble decision. I still fail to see the logic of shutting down that studio.

ArronC07's picture
On January 25th ArronC07 said:

Well logically this closure would support that theory surely?

grognard66's picture
On January 25th grognard66 said:

If MS was trying to sell Windows wouldn't they want compelling PC software, rather than just console games not running on Windows? I'm not sure why that's such a hard concept for some of you to grasp.

ArronC07's picture
On January 25th ArronC07 said:

If the plan is to use the 360 as a Trojan horse to get Windows into every living room then surely focusing their gaming efforts on that platform makes more sense? They've got the PC market pretty much sown up as far as Windows is concerned.