Rare and Microsoft: Ten Years of Games and Controversy

[Rare Addict]

Over at soon-to-be WMB Affiliate and savior of WMB 2.0, Rare Fandabase, there's an article that was just posted, titled Rare and Microsoft: Ten Years of Games and Controversy. In it, as the title would suggest, Hylian1_RFDB explores the events following Microsoft's acquisition of the British studio.

I figured I'd use this article as a jumping off point for a new discussion. Simply put, for those of you who have played any of Rare's Xbox titles, how do you feel about their performance? Do you believe that the magic was lost with Kinect Sports, or have their games been sub par since 2003's Grabbed by the Ghoulies?

[camarosquid]

Not that I actually played any rare games, (suprising I know.) I heard they are really good, well the ones before microsoft acquired them. Microsoft really did kill that company but you also got to remember that most of the old rare employees probably dont work there anymore so that could also explain why most of the recent rare games suck.

The video below pretty much sums up the new Rare in a nutshell. The video has explict language, not much but its there.

[Nevermore]

I think that it might be totally unfair to lay the blame entirely at Microsoft's feet, but they do hold their fair share of it. There have been other interviews by former Rare employees that came out earlier this year that stated it was a combination of quite a lot of factors (i.e. creative differences, simple moving on, etc., though one guy did state openly "It's Microsoft's fault for creating a negative atmosphere"). It just came at an incredibly unfortunate time for the company.

I don't think you can really say it would have been different if Nintendo had held onto them, either. In fact, to be quite honest, I'm pretty sure that it's likely Nintendo saw the writings on the wall in a surprisingly good moment of premonition. The Stamper brothers seemed to eager to get out from other Nintendo's wings, but it's quite that they noticed cracks were beginning to show and quietly let the company go, perhaps as a way to save face.

I hear some post-Nintendo games haven't been all bad (Kameo is overstated its awfulness, Viva Pinata is a lot of fun, actually, or so I hear for these two), but it's simply a shame the same creative lightning hasn't been caught three times, considering Rare's brilliant SNES and N64 runs.

P.S. Surprising fact: according to talking heads that worked at Rare, Nintendo had absolutely no problem with the move from the mediocre/craptastic Conker's Twelve Tales to Conker's Bad Fur Day!