Rumor: Rare Suffers Layoffs, Future May Hinge on Kinect Sports 2

[Rad Party God]

Damn. Remember when Rare used to be cool?

I still long for the N64 days, when almost every single game from Rare was an instant classic.

It's sad to see my once favorite studio getting sunk by it's own shovelware. I hope they recover from this, as I'm still waiting for Killer Instinct 3.

 

[v3n0mat3]

... Or you could make Conker's BFD 2, a good Perfect Dark, or Killer Instinct 3. Make a lot more money off any of those than Kinect Sports 2... just sayin'.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

The taller they are...

 

[Phlakes]

Protip: Make another Banjo-Kazooie platformer. Instant millions.

Didn't they try that a couple of years ago? I remember only limited success.

Protip: Make another Banjo-Kazooie platformer. Instant millions.

I would be incline to agree, but I seem to recall Nuts N' Bolts not being a power-seller.

Emphasis added.

 

[FungiGamer]

Everything good about Rare was lost long ago, and the only thing that held it together was Grant Kirkhope's classic music that left with the slap-in-the-face they called "Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts N' Bolts"

Honestly, the only analogy I can think of right now is that Rare was once a faithful, friendly and playful puppy that grew into one hell of a dog, but then something went wrong and before you knew it Rare went rabid, losing everything that made it enjoyable over the course of time.

I hate to say it but I think it's about time Rare should be put down, it's suffered long enough and is nothing more than a shadow of its former self. It was fun while it lasted....

.......wow that is the most depressing analogy I have ever thought of

 

[Cyrin]

... Or you could make Conker's BFD 2, a good Perfect Dark, or Killer Instinct 3. Make a lot more money off any of those than Kinect Sports 2... just sayin'.

I am pretty sure most of the team(maybe all at this point) who worked on the originals have left Rare by now.

Some went on to Free Radical Design(folks behind Timesplitters)... which was bought by Crytek.
I believe that a few people from Rareware formed Zoonami.

It's a little frustrating thinking about what games from Rareware could have been like had the Stamper brothers and Nintendo not sold all of their stock to Microsoft.

Also if the team had stayed together.
It could have been that they had the right mix of people at the right time to create those games we loved.

Either way, I agree with you.
A Killer Instinct or a Perfect Dark would really hall them out of the fire. (too bad artists are needed for that sort of thing.)

(A new team could perhaps do great things with these titles.)

 

[Squilookle]

Well Rare's pretty much been dead to me since they announced the next Conker was just a remake, or when Joanna was redesigned for PDZ. Whichever came first.

For god's sake if the studio goes under will someone PLEASE leak the XBLA version of Goldeneye out?

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

Well this sucks, Rare is one of my most beloved childhood memories and I'd hate to see them go under. If they do and I suddenly become inactive it's because I'm crying myself to sleep while clutching my cartridge of Battletoads. ;_;

But if they do come back and return to their 90's glory days, how about another KI, Jet-Pac or Battletoads?

 

[tunderball]

This company totally defined my childhood on the N64, whatevers going on down there good luck to them. I really hope that they can turn things around and return to their genre defining best. Also good luck to anybody who was made redundant hope you all land on your feet.

 

[Mr C]

Sorry to be off topic, but the word redundancy is also used in the UK. In fact if you check out a dictionary you will see that is considered to be a 'British English' word. See Macmillan or the Oxford Dictionary.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, my thoughts on the subject are that Rare seemed to be one of those companies that started listening too much to marketing people and chasing "innovation", in the form of fad products, instead of sticking to what they knew and improving their craft. I'm not a big fan of platformers personally, but the simple fact that they have (allegedly) invested themselves so heavily in something like Kinect says a lot about their mentality if true... and from the looks of things it probably is true.

Even in a multi-billion dollar industry companies make mistakes, and sadly it's not the current trend to carry companies when their misfortunes go beyong a brief period.

 

[RMcD94]

It's 4chan, and also, NOT VIVA PINATA. ;-;

 

[beema]

It's pretty sad that a company that at one point was responsible for colossal groundbreaking games is reduced to subsisting off of shovelware for a peripheral device.

oh well
life marches on. hopefully the people there will be able to find new jobs. As someone else said, it's no real loss to gaming over all at this point, since they haven't made anything relevant in forever.

 

[Jaebird]

Protip: Make another Banjo-Kazooie platformer. Instant millions.

Didn't they try that a couple of years ago? I remember only limited success.

Protip: Make another Banjo-Kazooie platformer. Instant millions.

I would be incline to agree, but I seem to recall Nuts N' Bolts not being a power-seller.

Emphasis added.

Last time I checked, there was quite a bit of platforming in Nuts & Bolts.

My point is, while Banjo-Kazooie is a platformer at heart, you can't get by on that alone.

 

[Baresark]

Holy crap, they have to rely on a gimmick game to save them, they are doomed. I'll always remember you and your work on Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct. Your greatness shall not be forgotten! But your end shall be pitiful no doubt.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

If you ask me, Rare went downhill when it was sold to Microsoft and they face-raped a classic game like Banjo-Kazooie. My childhood game on the old N64 butchered to be "pixel-boxed" in its crappy Nuts and Bolts game. You could get away with it in the 64 because it WAS 64bit, but on a Xbox 360? You killed them Microsoft.... you killed them....

 

[Jelly ^.^]

I still think Nintendo should have bought Rare when the two founding brothers offered it to them. One of the main reasons I bought a 360 instead of a PS3 was because I thought Microsoft would let Rare off the chain a bit and we'd see some of the old awesomeness again.

But damn, Rare closing? There goes the company that created a good chunk of my childhood memories.

 

[Tiswas]

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/348/2/5/the_boot_of_business_by_jollyjack-d34v1pb.jpg


Sucks that what was once a great dev has been reduced to shovelware on the Kinect.

 

[Lexodus]

Well... uh... it's been nice knowing you, Rare. Goodbye, and all that.