Dev: Rare Lost its "Spark" After Microsoft Purchase

[Souplex]

We all sort of knew that.
Retro Studios seems to have filled Rare's original niche at Nintendo pretty nicely though.
Why did Nintendo sell their Rare stock anyway?

 

[Vykrel]

more like "rare lost most of its original talent"

i dont know if any of the original developers from their golden days even still work there.

 

[Cursed Frogurt]

You now, I doubt there really is much I can comment on this, besides the fact that the guy who made Starfox Adventures has no right to tell me which games are good. Other than that...
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Haha, this. I don't care that StarFox Adventures was a Starfox game that played like a Zelda game. I care that it was a really bad game.

 

[Weaver]

I'd really love if Rare could come back somehow

 

[Vivi22]

You now, I doubt there really is much I can comment on this, besides the fact that the guy who made Starfox Adventures has no right to tell me which games are good. Other than that...
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Haha, this. I don't care that StarFox Adventures was a Starfox game that played like a Zelda game. I care that it was a really bad game.

Pretty much. Hell, saying it played like a Zelda game is giving it too much credit if you ask me.

Honestly, I think Rare lost their mojo long before Microsoft bought them. Aside from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark I didn't actually like anything they did post-SNES era, and Killer Instinct was always a terrible fighting game franchise. Never really understood why people liked it.

But at least even with their N64 games, most of them had somewhat interesting and creative characters and worlds. By the time the Gamecube came around they didn't even have that any more.

Then again, I guess when a lot of your talent leaves to form Free Radical and make games that don't suck we can only continue to expect so much from you.

 

[2fish]

I have not forgotten what you did.

Spoiler: Murderer!

Where did you put the real Agent Dark?

I must not cry, I must not cry.

 

[shrekfan246]

No, really?

I refuse to believe that.

I mean, with such magnificent titles as Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Kinect Sports, how could you say that Rare is a mere shadow of the company they used to be?

 

[Voren]

Rare was awesome in the 90's and it's shit today's days since Microsoft got involved? "No shit" the people of the world echo.

CAPTCHA: "Roll Over" pretty much what they made them do..

 

[neppakyo]

Gotta give MS some credit, if EA bought them, everyone would be fired and the name would be changed to EA Southwest or something.

Still doesn't excuse Rare for not making a good game in over a decade.

 

[Rad Party God]

Yeah... we all kinda knew that... but I digress, maybe they started to lose their shine after Conker's Bad Fur Day, because it's generally accepted that Star Fox Adventures is a mediocre game at best (one that I really liked... my guilty pleasure I guess :/).

But other than that, they'll always remain as the guys that made some of the most awesome games in existance, also, Retro Studios kinda fill that niche pretty nicely and I'm hopeful for what Gory Detail can accomplish on the WiiU after their little robot dog game.

 

[Dragonbums]

We all sort of knew that.
Retro Studios seems to have filled Rare's original niche at Nintendo pretty nicely though.
Why did Nintendo sell their Rare stock anyway?

I heard at the time, the price Microsoft gave to Nintendo for Rare was so enormous, nobody with any sense could hope to reject such an offer.

 

[Dragonbums]

more like "rare lost most of its original talent"

i dont know if any of the original developers from their golden days even still work there.

They don't. They all either left, or got the boot. Grant Kirkhope touched upon this when he was a guest player on the Game Grumps.
Based on what he said, we can assume that all of the original staff have left around the time of Viva Pinata.
They are now scattered about as indie developers or working elsewhere.
No one is really sure where the two original founders are either.

 

[Dragonbums]

I am amazed you didn't cover the fact Microsoft bought Rare because it thought it would transfer the rights of Donkey Kong to them. In fact, when the execs toured the acquisition they saw posters of Donkey Kong and got all excited, thinking they owned Donkey Kong.

That's hilarious as fuck.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

"Former Rare Employee Admits Harsh Truth That Everyone Knew For The Last 10 Years"

Last "modern" Rare game I played was Perfect Dark Zero, when the 360 first launched. I have never played a new Rare game since, that's how bad it was.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

This amuses me to no end, because in 2002 I remember reading a column in the 'Official Xbox Magazine' titled (and I am not making this up): "Rare Gone? Suck It, Fanboys."

Good to see that such hubris is punished over time.

 

[Terramax]

Well, it's nice to know that at least people AT Rare were fully aware their quality almost completely diminished with the acquisition. Anyways, this guy is just confirming what everyone already knows. Nintendo not buying Rare when the owners lost interest in the company has to be one of the worst decisions in gaming history.

It was the Stamper brothers who decided to sell their stake in the company to Microsoft. The instant they did that, they ruined things between Rare and Nintendo. Nintendo could have tried to buy those shares back off Microsoft, but would have a) had to expend a huge amount of money to do so, and b) would have ended up owning the studio outright, a practise they've said repeatedly in the past they dislike, as you can spend millions of dollars buying a studio only to have all the talent walk out. A lot of team members had already left to form Free Radical. Nintendo had no reason to keep hold of the rest of Rare when the Stamper brothers had already sold off half the company to Microsoft.

This is very true. However, it's anyone's guess if anyone were to have walked out if Nintendo kept hold of the company. After all, the reason why so many apparently stayed for so long was that they had a good vibe going when working with Nintendo.

Sure, members left to form Free-radical, but wasn't this immediately after the Goldeneye game? Rare continued to make quality for some years later. I could be wrong here.

 

[Sean951]

I take some solace in knowing that the best talent at Rare left before Microsoft got a hold of them. Timesplitters is the best followup to Perfect Dark that I could have hoped for (spiritually, if not thematically).