Will MS regret the buyout of Rare?

[npg]

Like many other's I guess, I thought Rare would have be one of MS key trump cards in this console war since the takeover last Xmas (?) but surprisingly, MS has been suspiciously quiet about Rare which has me wondering just what the hell are they up to. Besides the recent 'Grabbed by the Ghoulies' trailer and that 'Kameo' game which surely should have been wrapped up by now, since it was in development over at Nintendo for quite some time, there's been zero publicity and zero interviews from Rare.

They assured us that they'd release 3 games every year if I remember correctly and now that the first year is nearly over, what do we have? Absolutely nothing with a release date attached to it. I mean doesn't it make simple business sense that MS should be using Perfect Dark as a tool to get any rabid Rare fanboy into buying an Xbox? I've been waiting patiently for the first gameplay clip or even a few in-game screenshots that Rare would have themselves infamously drip fed to us by now, but all we've seen is a bunch of poorly captured 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' multiplayer screens.

I hope they've got something special planned for E3 or otherwise people are going to start to believe that a lot of talent at Rare did leave for Acclaim Cheltenham, Free Radical and Zoonami.

[Burai]

Probably.

They'll never break even on the Rare deal, simply due to the fact that Rare don't make enough games in a year and all of the peple that made those great N64 games have long since left the company.

Rare have been a Microsoft second party for the best part of 8 months and we've ironically only seen a GameCube game and Game Boy Advance game from them in that time, both of which were of highly questionable production value.

Microsoft bought the name basically. It got one over Nintendo, although I doubt they really care to be honest. They got a nice big cheque out of the deal and are still only 4million units worldwide behind Microsoft and actually making a profit at the same time.

[nips]

I think that it is more likely that MS will regret the whole XBox thing.

They are in the worst position finanicially: Start with loads of money and losing it fast!

I don't know, I'm just speculating... but, so far and in this generation atleast, they're gonna continue to lose a lot of money!

[iloveannie]

RareWhere?

[MD]

The Stamper brothers are clever tho and they probably will never have to work another day ever again.

Rare have always been quiet, if I was a betting man then I would wager that the best selling game on the Xbox (and in the overall top 5) will be a Rare game.

When the stampers were running Ultimate they knew that the Spectrum was near it's peak so they leased the company to US Gold, the Stamper Brothers went off to Rare (a company they formed a bit earlier) and started various projects including making Famicom games by doing the same things they did on the Spectrum and reverse engineering code and work out what they could do. They also made a few Arcade boards too.

The Stampers know when to move into different markets, they have been doing so for over 25 years now and they have never been poor....

[PeteJ]

The games Rare have shown so far have been very disappointing. Conker is an understandable quick buck, but Grabbed doesn't look too hot and Kameo hasn't really done anything to impress either.

No doubt the shake up when MS bought them knocked the studio for six, and I hope they have something very special in development. Perfect Dark Zero as an FPS isn't really enough, it needs to be a lot more than that - the Halo series is Xbox First person shooters.

[Kieran76]

I think MS will regret buying rare in terms of cash returns via sales, but as a consumer I am happy Rare left Nintendo. I'm sure they'll release some quality games, I think they were losing interest in Nintendo and it was starting to show. Their first batch of XB releases wont be earth shattering but the next lot will be.

[charlesr]

Without a doubt. Yes.
They have released nothing of particular note in the past 2 years. Well done Rare.

[Geoff D]

I'm not sure that they will - it was quite a coup to acquire Rare - hence the fanfare show announcement - so in business/prestige terms, it was a good move & a 1-up on Nintendo; even though Nintendo must have pocketed hefty $$$s for their trouble.

However, from a gamers point of view, what Rare were & what they are now is well-known; so far, a shadow of there former self. It'll be interesting to see how the software pans out though - I have good hopes for Perfect Dark Zero, but as someone has already been pointed out, with Xbox owners the world over salivating at vids & screens of Halo 2, they're going to have to go some to be a contender for the FPS crown.

I wonder what they have up their (very long) sleeve...

[Crisp_Rapper]

personally the only Rare games i ever liked where Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Jet Force Gemini (up until the bit where you had to find all those ****ing bear things )

so yeah, another PD would be great, nothing else of theirs interests me that much.

[Lebowski]

look at the **** they have churned out recentley, i think a companys only as good as the talent it employs. rares employe of the month award has never been easyer to get.

i think what this thread is getting at is that at the time of the merger, to a nintendo fanboy it seemd a big loss, but with rares glory days well and truely gone!! its a bit like "well mah who cares."

i think rare lost something when microsoft bourght them out, that link to the nintendo magic has gone as well as a lot of tallented empolyees, and theres me hopeing for blastcorps online team based destruction could be so fun.

[dose]

Microsoft never 'got one over Nintendo' and Rare never 'left Nintendo', it was the opposite way. Nintendo didn't want to continue with Rare. This is well known.

[Saurian]

The only game I like from Rare was Killer Instinct 1 (But that pure pure obsession)

All the heads were totally obsessed with it! I remember when it came out and Funland had 17 Killer Instinct cabinets, could you get on one? Could you hell! You had to wait AAAGES no matter where you went!
I swear down till now that Rare didnt do the gameplay design of the first KI! There MUST have been some Nintendo influence, there are far too many wicked little quirks!

Then they did Killer Instinct 2.... which was balls.

[rjpageuk]

Just like Donkey Kong Country (SNES) the first Killer Instinct was balls too really though.

Just like DK it was all about graphics and little else .

Sure I enjoyed KI as much as the next person, but it was hardly anything great was it?

[Saurian]

Just like Donkey Kong Country (SNES) the first Killer Instinct was balls too really though.

Just like DK it was all about graphics and little else .

Sure I enjoyed KI as much as the next person, but it was hardly anything great was it?

I'm not talking about the SNES version man - the arcade version was an absolute KILLER and it still plays wickedly even now (still have the board)