So what the hell happened to Rare???

[Johnny Awesome]

Yeah. The Twycross facility must be worth at least 100 million.

While this topic is clearly a troll I'll respond with my thoughts anyway. Rare will likely ship Kameo in September and Conker in October for Xbox and Sabre Wulf sometime this year for GBA.

They are probably working on Perfect Dark Zero for Xbox 2 and possibly Killer Instinct and Banjo Kazooie as well.

Starfox Adventures sold around one million copies on Cube, so it's not as if Rare didn't have a hit this generation already, despite some peoples hatred for that and Ghoulies which was also a very good game IMO.

 

[Qroach]

Overreacting a bit, aren't we? I didn't see you saying anything about me calling them Nintendo's lapdog. Jesus man, it's just a figure of speech, calm down.

Um, I'm not the one overeacting? I just asked a simple question, and nothing more, and you're jumping to conclusions... it was just a quesiton, sheesh!

I seem to remember they (meaning MS) bought up Nintendo's Rare stock, so that should mean they own at least part of the infrastructure too. Are the Stampers still majority shareholders?

MS bought nintendo's share and the stampers share to own Rare fully. the majority of the money went to the stampers. I wouldn't doubt if the land/buildings they are using was also purchased. It seems to be a pretty large area.

 

[Teasy]

While this topic is clearly a troll I'll respond with my thoughts anyway.

Your in no position to call anyone a troll...

 

[DeathKnight]

And you're in a position to call him on that?

 

[Sonic]

This topic is getting a little hostile. How much did Microsoft pay for rare anyway? Was it any more than $250 million?

Brimstone, your comment on Japanese companies in the gaming industry getting overworked and underpaid is valid, but that's also how it is in a lot of the country. 14 hour workdays are quite a bit, but the difference is mainly that some do it by choice, others by effective persuasion.

Rare leaving Nintendo hasn't proved to be any sort of detriment to the company as a whole. Rare joining Microsoft hasn't showed any positive results....yet. The purchase of Rare must have been heavily weighed by Microsoft and I'm sure they felt as if the made the best decision. Rare may be working on titles that will be unveiled at E3 and could be a bit of a surprise to many. The titles might even be on Xbox2 for all we know and that's what Rare has been doing for the past months/years (however long it has been with MS) to have a launch game ready for the console. Hell, they may release a game this year on Xbox as a new franchise and have the sequel ready for release on Xbox 2 in the first few months of its life. Who knows what Rare has been under MS's wing for this past time, but we will find out eventually. And when we do then we can weigh in if the purchase was an overvalued one at that.

 

[MrWibble]

Perfect Dark is for X2 now? WTF?

I wish I could work on a team where we had the luxury to skip an entire generation of consoles. Actually no, thats a lie - I kind of like actually releasing more than one title a decade.

I'm not even sure it's a viable franchise - GoldenEye was a better game (IMO), and the original team left ages ago (and have actually published two whole titles this generation with a third one probably about due).

For what MS paid for Rare I'd expect them to be laying a steady stream of golden eggs. Whoever is letting them piss money up the wall really needs a slap. If all they wanted was a second tier current-gen title and a nice launch title for next-gen, they could've have that a lot cheaper...

 

[Mendel]

Starfox adventures was a great game so stop bashing RARE please

Haven't tried any of their more recent games though... but i think i will take a look on them someday.

 

[Teasy]

And you're in a position to call him on that?

Yes I am actually, since I don't troll and he does.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

 

[wazoo]

some people should remember why this board was almost closed

 

[wazoo]

I'm not even sure it's a viable franchise - GoldenEye was a better game (IMO), and the original team left ages ago (and have actually published two whole titles this generation with a third one probably about due).

The team left in 2 parts, one for Radical design, the other for the mysterious "game zero" team, including the main producer of the FPS team of RARE.

For what MS paid for Rare I'd expect them to be laying a steady stream of golden eggs. Whoever is letting them piss money up the wall really needs a slap. If all they wanted was a second tier current-gen title and a nice launch title for next-gen, they could've have that a lot cheaper...

They need to have at least a 10M caliber game like Golden Eye to just start to see their money back, so it was more than just for the games. They had to show they were serious, aggressive and ready to hurt the competition. Rare was maybe not the right choice, but they failed to buy some japanese company. Rare was a second choice and maybe the only company ready to be bought.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

2 people left to found FRD, 1 person left to found Zoonami.

 

[Sonic]

I don't think SEGA not selling out to Microsoft had that much of an impact on the acquisition of Rare.

 

[cybamerc]

Johnny Awesome:

> Starfox Adventures sold around one million copies on Cube, so it's not
> as if Rare didn't have a hit this generation already

The franchise and Nintendo brand probably had a little something to do with it.



Sonic:

> This topic is getting a little hostile. How much did Microsoft pay for rare
> anyway? Was it any more than $250 million?

Yes. M$ paid $375 million for Rare.

 

[Guden Oden]

Did any employees bail out when MS took over?

Guess the Stampers are still running the day-to-day busines... Hopefully there won't be quite as many games coming out of Twycross using the exact same color palette Mario64 did these days... Well, whenever they do release something new, I mean.

 

[Goldni]

Well I know Rare is down to only one GBA team and that several pl went to Eurocom, Acclaim London (forget the name) and a few startups.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

Starfox adventures was a great game so stop bashing RARE please

Haven't tried any of their more recent games though... but i think i will take a look on them someday.

NO it wasn't. It sold on name recognition & visuals alone. A very poor Zelda clone it was.

 

[LisaJoy]

Starfox adventures was a great game so stop bashing RARE please

Haven't tried any of their more recent games though... but i think i will take a look on them someday.

NO it wasn't. It sold on name recognition & visuals alone. A very poor Zelda clone it was.

Cloned everything except the things that made it fun..
after a few hours of SFA, I never want to see another barrel again in my life, just because they made thier name on DKC, doesnt mean barrels need to be weapons in every game.

 

[Ug Lee]

Grabbed By The Ghoulies showed that Rare sure can create a nice looking game still, but as a massive fan of the side-scrolling beat 'em up genre I was offended by the dumbed down gameplay.

Rare need to get into gear and release Killer Instinct 3 on Xbox, bundled with arcade versions of the first two. 8)

 

[Fox5]

Starfox Adventures was a great looking game too, I don't think it was ever in question that Rare could still do good graphics. They've always been a bit hit or miss on gameplay though, imo their only truly stand out titles were goldeneye, perfect dark, and conker's bad fur day. Everything else was generally solid, but so were the crash bandicoot games.