There's an interview with Dave Pottinger on Shacknews that talks with the director of technology at Ensemble Studios about the news that they are being closed by owner Microsoft. Topics include the success of the Age of Empires franchise, the promise of their Halo Wars project, and their cancelled Halo MMOG. The conversation about all those successful and potentially successful projects naturally drifts to questions about why a studio with such a pedigree would be closed, but Dave seems as mystified by this as the rest of us: "They... they have a plan. We're not in it the way that we used to be. It's... they're making the choice that they need to make to be profitable, and make the right choice for the shareholders and things like that. It's hard to look at the stuff Ensemble's done and equate those two things, and justify it in that sense, but..."