Gaming Rare! No!

[Solo Tremaine]

PLEASE tell me Microsoft haven't already bought Rare! This is a story I read through a newsgroup. Microsoft'll be making an announcement in about two weeks. But is it a rumour? It can't be true! It'd better not be true! They'll make games exclusively for XBox! It's a scandal of highest proportions! Maybe they'll rebel and bring big ole' Bill down from the inside... Please?
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Later edit.
Sorry, I panicked a bit there. I realise this story's probably already been posted some time ago, so people are free to close it whenever. Sorry. But it shouldn't happen. I hate microsoft...

[Turkey]

Right now, I don't know what to believe. IGN put a long article about this yesterday. Normally, I wouldn't really believe it, but when they said: "[I]We put our reputation on the line[/I]", then it worried me.

Also, there are now rumors that the new Kameo footage shown last month was running on an X-Box.

If it is true, I just hope that the people at Nintendo knows what they're doing. What will they do with the extra $300 million in their bank?

BTW, according to Gamespot, Rare hasn't been bought yet, so they are now Third Party.

While we are talking about money, I just found out on Gamespot that Left Field bought out Nintendo's investment (whatever that meant).

[Semjaza]

IGN put up an article. So has Reuters, and I believe the LA Times. NCL has even been talking about it a bit in Japan. It's done. MS and Activision were bidding for Rare, and MS won out. Nintendo could have chosen to buy the entire company out, much like they did recently with Retro, but chose not to. From what I understand it's done, except Nintendo is trying to keep most of the licenses. Nintendo owns all the trademarks for the DK games Rare made, and I believe also KI and Banjo. They are apparently mostly fighting over who keeps the Perfect Dark license based on what I hear.

Personally, I won't miss Rare. They make good games, but are incredibly overrated. They couldn't even get a game out in a reasonable amount of time with nintendo... who basically funded them, helped them and gave them all the time they could want (even going so far as getting them a huge 70 acre area for their company). I expect no different with MS, although I personally think MS will set dates and force the games out.

Hopefully Nintendo will get the PD license, because I think Retro could do far better with the series. Retro is mostly made up of PC FPS veterans, and I think they could do the series justice.

The best part of this is that Nintendo now has tons of extra money that supposedly they plan to use to entice 3rd parties into GC exclusive games. I guess we'll see what happens.

[Schrat]

Im pretty sure the rumors are true...I cant believe it. At least we will still have the Nintendo Franchises like Star fox and DK...

[Sephiroth]

actually Microsoft bought 49% of Rare, so don't worry, Rare games will still be released on the GC, it's just the Xbox will be receiving Rare games as well

[Saiya-jinro]

At least Nintendo still owns 51%. I was kinda shocked too say the least though. Seeing as Rare only made games for Nintendo, for many years. I can say though that DK and Starfox will remain on Nintendo only.

[Semjaza]

Actually, Nintendo owns 49%. Rare owned 51%, which basically mostly belonged to the Stamper brothers. As far as I can tell MS bought out the 51%, so no matter what Nintendo would be in the minority on company decisions. Nintendo has said several times in the past few days that they are selling that 49%, that it won't really affect them since Rare was about 1.5% of their revenue last year (and no they didn't release a game at all in 2002 so far, but that's basically what the problem is --- they don't release games), and so on. Nintendo is getting rid of Rare. There will be no GC games unless some weird fluke thing happens. When this is said and done, MS will own Rare... the only thing up in the air is what franchises go along with it.

There is a possibility that those GBA games will be released. Micrsosoft Arcade is coming to GBA via THQ. I'm sure Rare and MS don't want to dump a few basically finished GBA games (such as Sabrewulf which has supposedly been finished for months).


However, Nintendo is being weird abott this. Despite what all of Japanese financial magazines say, and what NOA posted on their site... NCL is still denying this is even happening. I bet most likely because they are still in negotiations. Probably trying to get more money out of MS for Rare fight now (lat I heard it was half a billion dollars), as well as securing those licenses (PD, Conker - if they want that, not sure - etc).

If all goes according to plan though, Rare is off GC for good. It is all uspposed to be announced at MS's X02 event the day after Star Fox Adventures is released.

Here is one source that basically says that:

[quote]Nintendo to consider selling Rare stake if asked

Nintendo Co Ltd said it will consider selling its stake in UK game software developer Rare Ltd if another firm, such as Microsoft Corp, shows interest.

Rare, maker of games such as "Donkey Kong" for Nintendo's Gamecube home-use console and handheld Gameboy, has not been a major contributor of software so a sell-off would have little impact on Nintendo, a spokesman said.

"Last year Nintendo sold a lot of software but Rare's contribution only comprised 1.5%," said Nintendo's Yosuhiro Minagawa, adding: "A year earlier it amounted to 9.5%."

However, Minagawa said Nintendo is not considering selling its 49-pct stake in Rare at the moment, despite a news report to the contrary.

"That is pure speculation," he said, referring to a Nihon Keizai Shimbun report that Nintendo will sell the stake to Microsoft for 20-30 billion yen.

The sale would enable Microsoft to use Rare's software, which has a good reputation in Europe, to boost the popularity of its Xbox home game console, the paper said.

Minagawa, however, said Nintendo owned the copyright to Rare's characters and would continue to do so even after any potential stock sale.

"That is a very important fact," said Minagawa, dismissing the idea of "Donkey Kong" appearing on Microsoft's X-box.

Rare has been developing software for Nintendo since the mid-1980s.

NNN

© AFX News


Story filed: 05:40 Friday 13th September 2002[/quote]

This reminds me of the whole Nintendo/Square thing a few months back. One company would say one thing, another would say a different thing. And in the end we get 4 GBA games, a GC FF game and supposedly a couple more in development. Who knows anymore lol.

[James]

[color=royalblue]Actually, Nintendo owns less than 25% of Rare at this point in time.

I think this was inevitable. Nintendo had the option of buying Rare a while ago and declined; clearly, in a financial sense, Nintendo does not believe that the asking price was worthwhile.

Rare are also very slow. They haven't yet released a game for GameCube and during most of their life, their games suffered from lengthy delays.

I think you'll find that games such as Perfect Dark and Conker (Rare franchises created whilst Rare was publishing under Nintendo) will stay with Nintendo. Or at least, most of them will.

With Microsoft, Rare will need to develop totally new franchises. It will no longer have access to Donkey Kong and others.

I suspect that we might even see Perfect Dark Zero going to US-based Retro Studios (especially after the great job they're doing with Metroid Prime...and the fact that most of their design teams have prior work experience with companies like Valve, ID Software etc etc).[/color]

[Semjaza]

However, Minagawa said Nintendo is not considering selling its 49-pct stake in Rare at the moment, despite a news report to the contrary.

Well Nintendo says otherwise... But there are so many different companies that Rare is made up of (Rare Inc, Rare Liminted, etc), so who knows lol. I've heard everything from like 30 something percent to 51%.

[James]

[color=royalblue]Nintendo originally purhased a 49% stake of Rare in exchange for certain assets (DK franchise being one of them).

However, I'd read numerous times that Nintendo's stake had dropped significantly since then. So yes, the 49% figure may relate to a specific part of Rare's business...who knows.

I do know that Nintendo doesn't have a controlling share of Rare, however.

As far as I know, Nintendo can hold what it currently owns (and block Microsoft from buying that 49%). However, MS can purchase the remaining 51% and thus, that would be considered a controlling share.

So who knows what Nintendo will do. They may not sell anything at all (they might just be negotiating over franchises). However, they may decide to sell up their entire stake in the company (or part of it, anyway).

I hope they keep their stake, so that at the very least, Rare can still make [i]some[/i] games for GameCube/GBA.[/color]

[Turkey]

There's so many different statements on this situation that it's almost impossible to get the facts straight.
As good as RARE games (usually) are, I gotta admit they are pretty slow workers, especially when compared to developers like Rockstar and Neversoft.

[James]

[color=royalblue]I think you mean DMA. Rockstar is just a label...it doesn't even exist. o_O

DMA is the true creator of the GTA games. Ugh, I guess I'm used to publishers getting the credit. lol[/color]

[Semjaza]

Rockstar has several companies under them that make their games. I think DMA was recently renamed to Rockstar something though. I am not sure if Rockstar itself. They really turned around though, I remember their first announced game was a Mario Kart type game based on Austin Powers called Mojo Rally. They canceled that and have thankfully put out decent games since then lol.

[James]

[color=royalblue]Rockstar is just a label...owned by I forget who. lol

It was originally made to publish these "extreme" types of games. And DMA was acquired by the owners of the Rockstar label.

So yeah, I think DMA's name [i]was[/i] changed...twice over the last six months, infact.[/color]

[Solo Tremaine]

Twice in six months? Must've cost a hell of a lot. The postal service here spent millions (maybe billions) on changing their name to Consignia, only to decide a few weeks later to change it back to Royal Mail. I can think of plenty of better things to do with money... anyway-

I agree- RARE are slow, and it is pretty infuriating, but the results can be worth it. Financially, I can see why Nintendo's selling some of its shares- they must be losing value a fair amount, what with little or no major activity recently. But still, I can't wait for SFA to arrive, nor PD.

Mind you, if the PD franchise does get handed over, do you think Retro would be able to make it well enough? As it is they've got Nintendo breathing down their necks with Metriod Prime. I hope Nintendo's handing over of StarFox to Capcom was a good idea, too.

[Charles]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Semjaza Azazel [/i]
[B]I think DMA was recently renamed to Rockstar something though[/B][/QUOTE]

Yep, DMA is now going under the label of Rockstar North.

Anyway, Rare is a quality developer. Titles such as Perfect Dark Zero would definitely benefit from a cross platform deal. Especially with Sony and Microsoft's more fleshed-out online plans.

[Semjaza]

Well the thing is... Rare isn't going 3rd party. They are becoming 2nd party all over again... Perhaps even a MS first party from the sounds of it. I doubt they'll put out anything but Xbox games, with the possibility of a few GBA games if Nintendo allows it.

So I doubt we'll see mulitplatform Rare anything lol.


As for Retro, there were problems at first... And those were WAY more publicized than when they do something right. After those other games were canceled and Retro focused on MP, I've heard nothing but good things. Miyamoto himself had been complimenting the team on their work, and Nintendo even made the company a full first party. They must be happy with Retro considering that.

MP impressions are almost all pretty favorable so far, and you have to keep in mind that Retro is confined to making this game feel like Metroid -- which has affected controls and so many other things in a way that making it like a normal FPS wouldn't work. With something like PD which is basically a traditional FPS I think they wouldn't have any real problems. Most of the team is made up of FPS vets (Quake, Half Life, Turok, etc.), so I'd trust them.

[Schrat]

*sniff* I just heard that you will never see any of these Rare propertys on a nintendo system...Conker, Perfect dark, and Banjo... Plus some others i frogot....*sniff*

The only goo dthing is well, well i dont own an xbox but just imagine perfect dark on xbox live!

[Red]

[quote] The postal service here spent millions (maybe billions) on changing their name to Consignia, only to decide a few weeks later to change it back to Royal Mail. [/quote]

[b]Actually, Consignia is their [i]business[/i] name, Royal Mail is kept due to it's familiarity with people.

Staying on topic, I still hope that Rare stun the gaming world with another excellent game, but as James said, they had yet to produce and release and games for the GC.[/b]

[Semjaza]

Well it has been confirmed that Rare owns Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Conker... I'd guess that means JFG, Blast Corps and whatever else too. I'm not sure if KI is included in that or not.

I bet anything MS will get Rare to work on one of those first, just to create some stir among average people who don't pay attention to this stuff. A lot of people equate Rare with Nintendo right now.

Rare's two DK GBA games will be released, but Sabre Wulf and another are on hold for the time being.

[Solo Tremaine]

Well, at least they have a second Starfox game in development. I like Starfox. They say it'll be released at the end of 2003, so I guess that means mid-late 2004...

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Actually, the next Star Fox game (which is a shooter, like the first two Star Fox games), is being developed by Namco. And, last I heard (which was in the November issue of EGM that I got today), its release date is sometime in spring 2003.[/color]

[Solo Tremaine]

Yeah, I misread the article. I hope Namco do a good job with it. It's a great shame we'll not get to see PD, though. That was one of the games I was really looking forward to. I guess I'll have to get Metroid instead.

[NorykoAngelcry]

[COLOR=darkred][SIZE=1]Hmmm. . Perfect Dark or Metroid? *waves goodbye to Rare* While it IS a shame that Rare is leaving, since many of their games were my favorite on the N64, I don't think I mind as much as I thought I would. When I first saw the articles or posts around forums about it, I was freaking out! No, not Rare! Now it comes down to what some have already said - their speed at making games. Rare was just too slow! They didn't put out games on a fast enough average to really rival anyone. Sure their games were awesome, and I am sure they took the extra time to polish up their games, but come on!

I am happy that the Goldeneye crew is working on Time Splitters 2. That is my new FPS that I am looking for.

As for some of their other games, I wasn't too big of a fan of them, and gladly so. A few games that I won't see again is alright, but if I was a HUGE follower of Rare, I think I would have to shed a tear or two. [/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Semjaza]

[url]http://www.xbox.com/news/0209/rarepressrelease.htm?det=1[/url]

Well this should prove it to everyone. I'm sure whatever is being shown of Kameo or PD on Xbox was originally up and running on GC, which is pretty weird to think about lol.

I figured MS would make Rare make sequels to most of it's Nintendo games, and judging from that page they are doing just that.