The Ensemble Studios Website has an official goodbye from the studios, following the recent revelation that Microsoft is closing it down (story). Bruce Shelley recaps some of the circumstances surrounding the move, and describes plans going forward to finish up Halo Wars, get started with "Newco," the studio being formed by Ensemble's Tony Goodman that is offering several ES staffers new positions (Shelley says he does not expect to be joining them), and his plans to continue with blog updates in the future. The opening paragraph describes the shock the studio experienced at all this: "I have mentioned with regret the closing of several quality game studios over the past several years but I never considered that ES would join the list. Everyone at our studio was shocked, and I think remains very disappointed that this is going to happen. I believe we thought we were immune to shut-down talk because our published games have done so well and have been so profitable. Plus we felt we had built a really stable (low-turnover), talented, hard-working, and creative team, which is not easy to do. We thought we were among the best studios in the world, and that may be true, but we don’t fit in the future plans of MGS as an internal studio so we’re out." Thanks The Patches Scrolls.