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[Synth]

While the C-Stick was not ideal for FPS games, on an unrelated tangent, it was pretty good for a casual approach. I find that the GC controller worked really well with casual or otherwise lapsed gamers. Fingers rest comfortably on the L and R buttons, Z button - while awkward - was immediately identifiable, A button and B button's design made it obvious which was select and which was cancel, and the C-Stick stood out from the Analog Stick, so people would better understand that its functions were different. I'd personally make it bigger, but...

I don't disagree with you, but this illustrates where Nintendo's problem really were. The controller was so tailored to being casual friendly that it negatively impacted many core genres. FPS games like Halo it was unsuited for. Fighters like Tekken and Street FIghter it was unsuited for. Racers like Outrun 2 it was unsuited for.... The lack of a Perfect Dark Zero is a tiny issue in comparison to the fact that Nintendo was building its hardware to benefit their games at the expense of everyone else's. This has continued in generations since, and makes all of their platforms unappealing to third-parties.

Original Perfect Dark was kind of terrible, I hated it. Halo is notable for the improved console controls the game felt really, really good to play whereas other shooters were fairly clunky. PDZ had nothing really notable about it.

I'm not saying it was special (I enjoyed it a lot at the time though). I'm saying "standard arena deathmatch" is a pretty crappy criticism, as it can be used to describe many of the best multiplayer shooters ever to exist. At the time of release PDZ was one of the best multiplayer FPS games to be made available on consoles (I'd place Halo 2 and RTCW above it), which is why many people have such fond memories of it. Of course once Gears of War hit, its time was over immediately.

 

[Peltz]

Nintendo hasn't has had a great exclusive FPS title since perfect dark :\

I mean... it had something even better that changed the way we think about games in the 1st person perspective.

 

[Synth]

I mean... it had something even better that changed the way we think about games in the 1st person perspective.

I hope you're not referring to Metroid Prime here. Because as great as it was, it's not very influential at all, and everybody just went with the Halo model (later evolved into the CoD model) instead.

 

[Man God]

GCN controller is fine for FPS and Tekken. It's not good for Street Fighter but then again only six face button pads were any good for it.

 

[Synth]

GCN controller is fine for FPS and Tekken. It's not good for Street Fighter but then again only six face button pads were any good for it.

It's not fine for Tekken at all. Tekken relies on a logical left/right top/bottom layout for its attacks. This works fine with pretty much every other controller, but the Gamecube's is completely unsuited for it. This is the problem with the Gamecube's pad really.. not that it's layout is inherently bad... but pretty much every other controller follows some accepted standards for button placement, and games are subsequently built around that assumed layout. Street Fighter is definitely better with a six button layout, but for face button laid out in a similar pattern combined with placing one strength on the shoulders has worked well enough for all such games dating back to the SNES.

 

[140.85]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Everything that has transpired since Nintendo wisely dumped that dead weight has done nothing but reaffirm how good of a choice it was. They were getting nothing for their investment.

 

[Toaster05]

I'm old enough to remember when Rare were still Ultimate Play The Game.

I'd argue that's when they were truly pumping out winners.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Everything that has transpired since Nintendo wisely dumped that dead weight has done nothing but reaffirm how good of a choice it was. They were getting nothing for their investment.

Two years before they made the sale, Rare made one of the top-rated Nintendo-published games in Nintendo's approx. 30 years of being a console maker. The year before they were sold, Conker rated about the same as Mario Sunshine. Before the sale, they had one game that didn't sell to expectations and rated relatively poor. If one less good game was enough to make a company bad, then Nintendo shouldn't have anything to it anymore if that's how they reacted to Rare's single "poor" game.

Following the sale, much of Rare's poor output can be tied to people jumping ship and Microsoft's poor management of the company. Suggesting that Nintendo made this genius decision is absurd.

 

[Synth]

I'm old enough to remember when Rare were still Ultimate Play The Game.

I'd argue that's when they were truly pumping out winners.

damn... you old.

 

[EatinOlives]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Everything that has transpired since Nintendo wisely dumped that dead weight has done nothing but reaffirm how good of a choice it was. They were getting nothing for their investment.

Revisionist history at best. Rare wasn't in any way "declining", and far, far, FAR from "dead weight". Star Fox Adventures sucked because Nintendo came in and demanded the game be rebranded as Zelda Lite Starring Star Fox.

A few key members left the team by then, but that's what people do, that's not unique to Rare. A lot of "key people" to Metroid Prime have left as well, and we're not going around calling Retro "a shell of their former selves".

Rare's output on the XBox declined because of Microsoft's meddling. They weren't in a decline on their own. Grabbed by the Ghoulies, for instance, turned out shit for that reason. But Kameo was a perfectly decent launch title that would've undoubtedly had an amazing sequel if they had made one. Viva Pinata was great and so was Nuts & Bolts. Their work with Avatars and Kinect Sports was largely mandated by Microsoft (despite what they like to say). In short, they got worse because MS mishandled them when they got more "hands-on". When they were more hands-off they put out quality stuff still.

Rare to this day still has some talent from their "early" days floating around. They can continue to put out quality titles if MS would let them do it, which at the moment looks like is what's happening. If the games are non-Kinect-Sports and they turn out crappy then yes, I'm ready to call Rare dead, but not until they've had another chance post-Nuts-&-Bolts to make something truly great.

The whole "they were dead when Nintendo let them go" is just revisionist history. They were far from dead. That's just a silly narrative Nintendo fans like to push to feel better about Nintendo and Rare parting ways, but the reality is that yes, Nintendo did hurt quite a lot losing Rare during the GameCube era. Rare also hurt when they had to deal with MS's bullshit. It was a bad decision from Nintendo to not buy them outright when they had the chance, because it ended up hurting both companies in the end.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Left field made one game with Nintendo, didn't seem like a very close relationship, and can you really blame them for passing on Too Human?

You are confusing developers. Left Field Productions completed 7 games as a Nintendo Studio. Silicon Knights completed 2 games.

They've more than made for it up with it Monster Games, Next Level Games and Retro

It's hard to take that comment seriously if you live outside of the small Nintendo bubble.


Nintendo Top Western Studios
Retro Studios (100 employees)
Next Level Games (70 employees)
Nintendo Software Technology (30 employees)
Monster Games (20 employees)
Total: ~ 220 employees

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Top Western Studios
Naughty Dog Inc. (250 employees)
SCE Santa Monica Studio (200 employees)
SCE San Diego Studio (180 employees~)
Total: ~ 630 employees

I mean.. I didn't even have to include SCE Bend Studio, SCE Foster City Studio, SCE London Studio, Guerilla Games, Media Molecule, PIxel Opus, etc to almost triple the amount of Western developers.

 

[Sponge]

A few key members left the team by then, but that's what people do, that's not unique to Rare. A lot of "key people" to Metroid Prime have left as well, and we're not going around calling Retro "a shell of their former selves".

About time someone said this. Kenn Lobb even helped with the first Metroid Prime.

You guys remember Maverick Hunter? The cancelled Mega Man game developed by Ex-Retro Studios members?

 

[A Link to the Past]

About time someone said this. Kenn Lobb even helped with the first Metroid Prime.

You guys remember Maverick Hunter? The cancelled Mega Man game developed by Ex-Retro Studios members?

Hey, I brought up Retro's staff leaving a while ago :v

 

[Sponge]

Hey, I brought up Retro's staff leaving a while ago :v

Whoops, I'm sure I missed it. Sorry about that.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

Having Retro is fine, but there's no way it's good to lose IP's that are synonymous with the Nintendo brand. Perfect Dark and Banjo would have done GC incredibly well ... Prime alone didn't do anything for them and it's not a type of game FPS players from N64 would have drooled over. If anything, they probably jumped over to playing Halo after finding out there was few FPS around on GC.

 

[DarkCronos]

Nintendo didn't sell Rare. The Stampers did. They had 51% of the shares, and when microsoft bought them, Nintendo had no interest in keeping 49% of a company they could not control.

 

[sörine]

I don't disagree with you, but this illustrates where Nintendo's problem really were. The controller was so tailored to being casual friendly that it negatively impacted many core genres. FPS games like Halo it was unsuited for. Fighters like Tekken and Street FIghter it was unsuited for. Racers like Outrun 2 it was unsuited for.... The lack of a Perfect Dark Zero is a tiny issue in comparison to the fact that Nintendo was building its hardware to benefit their games at the expense of everyone else's. This has continued in generations since, and makes all of their platforms unappealing to third-parties.

I was with you until that. With it's deep analog triggers (with a secondary button click) the GCN pad is ideally suited to racers, possibly moreso than any other standard controller. Outrun 2 would've played like a dream on it.

The controller was awkward for anything that emphasized constant dual analog due to the dumb c-nipple, or that placed equal weight on the four cross buttons (like Tekken or MK), or required that tiny d-pad (lol). There were some 3rd party games ideally suited to it though, even ports like Monkey Ball or Burnout or Soulcalibur. Sure it was terrible for Street Fighter but then so is every standard controller except the Saturn pad or PCE/MD 6 button variants. PS1, Dreamcast or 360's garbage d-pads didn't keep them from getting tons of Capcom fighters.

Besides, Nintendo's gone about as traditional as it can get for controller layout this gen (they just keep sticking optional touchscreens between everything) and 3rd parties are treating them worse than ever. I sort of feel like it doesn't matter much.

It's hard to take that comment seriously if you live outside of the small Nintendo bubble.


Nintendo Top Western Studios
Retro Studios (100 employees)
Next Level Games (70 employees)
Nintendo Software Technology (30 employees)
Monster Games (20 employees)
Total: ~ 220 employees

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Top Western Studios
Naughty Dog Inc. (250 employees)
SCE Santa Monica Studio (200 employees)
SCE San Diego Studio (180 employees~)
Total: ~ 630 employees

I mean.. I didn't even have to include SCE Bend Studio, SCE Foster City Studio, SCE London Studio, Guerilla Games, Media Molecule, PIxel Opus, etc to almost triple the amount of Western developers.

In fairness SCE's Japanese R&D is pathetic in both scope and output compared to the development empire Nintendo's built locally over the past two gens. It's just a different set of priorities between the two (local centralized versus global diversified). You can debate the advantages of both but a notable one I'd say is we don't seem to see Nintendo shuttering studios and laying off development staff with the same frequency we do SCE or Microsoft.

 

[EatinOlives]

Nintendo didn't sell Rare. The Stampers did. They had 51% of the shares, and when microsoft bought them, Nintendo had no interest in keeping 49% of a company they could not control.

Nintendo could've easily bought the 51% if they wanted to. But they were not committed enough to do it (which was idiotic given Rare's key involvement in the N64's library).

 

[Synth]

I was with you until that. With it's deep analog triggers (with a secondary button click) the GCN pad is ideally suited to racers, possibly moreso than any other standard controller. Outrun 2 would've played like a dream on it.

The controller was awkward for anything that emphasized constant dual analog due to the dumb c-nipple, or that placed equal weight on the four cross buttons (like Tekken or MK), or required that tiny d-pad (lol). There were some 3rd party games ideally suited to it though, even ports like Monkey Ball or Burnout or Soulcalibur. Sure it was terrible for Street Fighter but then so is every standard controller except the Saturn pad or PCE/MD 6 button variants. PS1, Dreamcast or 360's garbage d-pads didn't keep them from getting tons of Capcom fighters.

Besides, Nintendo's gone about as traditional as it can get for controller layout this gen (they just keep sticking optional touchscreens between everything) and 3rd parties are treating them worse than ever. I sort of feel like it doesn't matter much.

I'll retract Outrun 2 tbh. I was actually thinking of something like Daytona USA where the common usage was to have gears 1,2,3,4 mapped to the face buttons mimicking the placements of a shifter. Outrun 2 only actually has shift down and shift up, and whilst sliding between B and A on a Gamecube pad would feel more awkward than on Xbox and Playstation controllers, it wouldn't really be an issue overall. I really don't agree with the idea of a secondary trigger click being useful for racers though. It is better suited for the genre than the PS2 joypad was though, come to think of it. Having played multiple racers with it though, I'm not even entertaining the thought that it's better for racers than the Xbox controllers are though. Nope.

I think trying to classify every other controller as "terrible" for Street Fighter is a huge exaggeration seeing as the layouts employed are what the majority of people playing the games have always used. They're not ideally suited (and neither was the GC's controller for Soul Calibur... wtf...), but the button placements in general get the job done. The layouts are a huge hindrance as you can just place the for most important buttons on the face of the controller (I always throw medium strength onto shoulder buttons). The SNES pad was fine for this, along with most other controllers since. Multiple consoles have rubbish dpads, but they're nowhere near the same level of issue as having buttons in the wrong places.

They definitely made some concessions this gen in regards to the controller layout... but at this point it's mostly a lost cause. The console itself is too weak to expect ports of current gen titles, and it's performing badly in the market. If it's not one thing it's the other. Nintendo's never tried creating another SNES like console that fits in with what other studios are working towards. Third parties don't avoid Nintendo out of spite.. it's just that Nintendo constantly createss environments which aren't beneficial to them.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

I don't know if we'll ever know the truth behind why Nintendo chose to let them go, but it was up until the last minute that they made that decision I think. Proof of that lies on the original GameCube box itself. Half of the games being promoted on it are Rare games: Donkey Kong Racing, Kameo, and Starfox Adventures. That alone is proof I think they had intended on having them around for the GCN era.

I remember Emily Rogers stating in one of her articles that Howard Lincoln was like the "glue that stuck Rare and Nintendo together". He retired in 2001. He was a huge player in the relationship between the two companies and even stated once that Rade were the best developers in the world. Had he still been Nintendo's lawyer, Nintendo would have likely anted up the money.

*sigh* I remember him a lot from Nintendo Power magazines back in the day (and random quotes in EGM). It does bother me how their E3 (which included the realistic Zelda) had quite a few Rare games shown off. I mean, even if a lot of the talent had left, there's nothing wrong with keeping the IP's. I'm sure Howard saw this, but no one in Japan did ...

The most damaging thing of Nintendo relinquishing its shares of RARE, wasn't so much the company itself, but some of the intellectual properties lost with it. Perfect Dark and Killer Instinct could have been very useful to Nintendo moving forward with the Wii.

However, RARE was only one of the constituents affected by Iwata's restructuring. RARE, Left Field Productions, and Silicon Knights were all dropped as Nintendo affiliated studios. Nintendo also ended its relationship with Factor 5 who was not only developing system tools for Nintendo platforms, but tried to pitch a Pilotwings and Kid Icarus prototype. Nintendo Software Technology took a serious hit with Project Hammer being cancelled "because it was too core" and lost about half its staff. Nintendo of America as an autonomous production unit was relieved of their duties, and all their development contacts alongside it.

*double freaking sigh!* Wii's popularity came from a ton of Western help. Surprised Iwata thought Nintendo could get away with the same success by decreasing it's presence in the Americas. Hopefully the Wii U lesson has bitten him enough to realize that success will not come from being stuck in a shell.

But then again, there's the success of the 3DS so he probably won't care as much.

 

[DragonSworne]

*sigh* I remember him a lot from Nintendo Power magazines back in the day (and random quotes in EGM). It does bother me how their E3 (which included the realistic Zelda) had quite a few Rare games shown off. I mean, even if a lot of the talent had left, there's nothing wrong with keeping the IP's. I'm sure Howard saw this, but no one in Japan did ...



*double freaking sigh!* Wii's popularity came from a ton of Western help. Surprised Iwata thought Nintendo could get away with the same success by decreasing it's presence in the Americas. Hopefully the Wii U lesson has bitten him enough to realize that success will not come from being stuck in a shell.

But then again, there's the success of the 3DS so he probably won't care as much.

3DS is underperforming in NA. It's one of the reasons why Iwata made himself President of NoA.

I don't think he'll be able to do much since the weakened market for Nintendo in NA is a direct cause of his decisions.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

In fairness SCE's Japanese R&D is pathetic in both scope and output compared to the development empire Nintendo's built locally over the past two gens. It's just a different set of priorities between the two (local centralized versus global diversified). You can debate the advantages of both but a notable one I'd say is we don't seem to see Nintendo shuttering studios and laying off development staff with the same frequency we do SCE or Microsoft.

Well I that almost goes without saying that Nintendo is going to have a stronger presence in Japanese development. No other game maker comes close to their success. But SCE Japan has "400 developers" and Polyphony Digital has "140 employees". That's still rather sizeable. Clap Hanz, an independent contractor, would probably be considered their third main arm (like HAL Laboratory for Nintendo). But of course, SCE Japan Studio doesn't have that blockbuster franchise they can merely maintain, so they spend a lot of time experimenting or probably prototyping games that probably never decide what market it should be aimed for.

 

[Links_fantasy]

I would like Nintendo to invest or create some more overseas dev teams. Rare was great and different to Retro because it had a British culture and sense of humour. Conker which I love has a very British style of humour, it's like tv shows I like American shows but I also want to watch brittish ones too. Eastern European devs also have a unique style too. It would help create a greater flavour of software.

 

[DragonSworne]

Nintendo really needs someone like Left Field again. Even if they get EA back again, just having EA sports title isn't enough. You need more sports

 

[Durock]

*sigh* I remember him a lot from Nintendo Power magazines back in the day (and random quotes in EGM). It does bother me how their E3 (which included the realistic Zelda) had quite a few Rare games shown off. I mean, even if a lot of the talent had left, there's nothing wrong with keeping the IP's. I'm sure Howard saw this, but no one in Japan did...

In all fairness, Nintendo had no right to those IP. Rare was always a second party studio to them and their own IP was created in-house by their own hands. If Nintendo wanted the IP, they should have bought the company and not have refused it.

When MS purchased Rare, there were a lot of issues that affected development. Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero were all GameCube games that had to be transferred over to the Xbox, adding additional dev time. Then Zero and Kameo the choice at some point was made to put them on 360, so again, another transfer to an all-new system. Those 2 games alone were in development for a very long time. And couple too that Zero actually had a very small dev team for a number of years.

So it wasn't that Rare had lost any large sums of staff, there was just a lot of obstacles that had to be overcome. And of course Microsoft changing the way development ran at Rare.

Part of the reason Rare was so successful was because the Stamper Bros. had each of the teams competing with one another. There was Barn A, B, C, D. No team was allowed to tell another team what they were working on. So each team was always competing to make a game better than the other. It was a different way of running things, but it worked.

 

[prag16]

I think this is a little revisionist. I remember people realizing at the time that losing Rare was a huge blow. But it didn't exactly "cause" the decline of Nintendo's western sales; the decline was already well under way during Rare's prime.

 

[Durock]

I think this is a little revisionist. I remember people realizing at the time that losing Rare was a huge blow. But it didn't exactly "cause" the decline of Nintendo's western sales; the decline was already well under way during Rare's prime.

It certainly didn't help either. Look at the Wii U's line-up of current games or heck, even the Wii's line-up of non-casual games. Hard to find any that isn't coming from Nintendo directly. Rare would have made a large difference with more games on shelves for consumers to purchase. Losing Rare may not have started it, but it definitely had a significant impact.

 

[Cheerilee]

In all fairness, Nintendo had no right to those IP. Rare was always a second party studio to them and their own IP was created in-house by their own hands. If Nintendo wanted the IP, they should have bought the company and not have refused it.

While I agree that Rare should have the rights to their IP, and if Nintendo wanted Rare's games they should have bought Rare instead of dumping them, the rights situation was apparently more complicated than that when Rare was working with Nintendo.

Basically, because Rare was using Nintendo's money, Nintendo owned everything. According to the US Patent Office, Nintendo owned Banjo Kazooie, along with most of Rare's other IP. After a while, Rare was allowed to "self publish", and Rare Limited was listed as the owner of certain games like Perfect Dark.

But...
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2001/010524e.pdf

"Rareware Limited" was a second party, owned 51% by the Stampers.
"Rare Limited" was a file folder in Nintendo's filing cabinet, owned 100% by Nintendo.

Sneaky Nintendo owned everything.

After Rare and Nintendo split up, Nintendo sold Rare's IP back to them. There was no malice, Nintendo was just holding the IP for Rare. Afterwards, the Stampers said that Nintendo was really good about the breakup, and went above and beyond what was required of them, and if they had wanted to, Nintendo could have really killed Rare out of spite.

If you think about it, Cranky Kong was a character created by Rare for a Donkey Kong game, but Nintendo owns him. Conker was a character created by Rare for a Donkey Kong game, but Rare owns him. Krystal was a character created by Rare for a new IP, which was converted into a StarFox game, but Nintendo owns her. There doesn't seem to be a rule for who owns what, except that both parties ended up with the IP that they wanted.

And Rare was friends with Nintendo for a while after the breakup, until Iwata allegedly burned the bridges.

 

[watership]

It hurts me more that MS took Rare's IPs more than anything else. Nintendo could use Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct and Banjo right about now.

I can't imagine that Nintendo would do better than what MS is doing with KI now.

 

[Calamari41]

If you think about it, Cranky Kong was a character created by Rare for a Donkey Kong game, but Nintendo owns him. Conker was a character created by Rare for a Donkey Kong game, but Rare owns him. Krystal was a character created by Rare for a new IP, which was converted into a StarFox game, but Nintendo owns her. There doesn't seem to be a rule for who owns what, except that both parties ended up with the IP that they wanted.

The rule was, as I recall, Nintendo owns all characters created for the mainline Donkey Kong games. Especially, and I would hope intuitively, ones with "Kong" in their name.

The DKR characters were put in by Rare as advertising for their future games.

 

[jholmes]

I never understood the idea that Rare was on some downward spiral in quality before they left Nintendo.

Star Fox Adventures (2002) has an 82 Metacritic score (out of 39 critics).

Man you people can keep quoting that Metacritic score but it doesn't change the fact that I played the whole thing and it was a total turd. I said it was then, too! Boring and aimless, with awful shooting controls and one of the worst endings to any video game ever.

This game came just a couple years off another boring, aimless and just damn awful game, Donkey Kong 64, that I despised and that ranks a completely divorced from reality 90 on Metacritic.

So yeah, they released two huge-budget games I hated and their big-title output ground to a halt. I'd call that a downward spiral. It's great that they released Perfect Dark between those two games but what have they done since that?

 

[Cheerilee]

The rule was, as I recall, Nintendo owns all characters created for the mainline Donkey Kong games. Especially, and I would hope intuitively, ones with "Kong" in their name.

The DKR characters were put in by Rare as advertising for their future games.

Nintendo released "Donkey Kong Racing DS" featuring all of the DKR characters, except Banjo and Conker.

And the US Patent Office said that Nintendo owned Banjo, because they published it.

And "Rare published Conker", but pre-release Conker 64 was apparently owned by "Rare Partnership", composed of Rare Acquisition Inc (a Nintendo property), Rare Coin-It Inc (a Nintendo property), and Rareware Ltd (the second party). This trademark was then dropped and refiled as simply belonging to "Rare Limited" (a Nintendo property).

After Microsoft bought Rare, Conker's IP was dropped by Rare Limited and picked up by Microsoft.

 

[Abounder]

Rare complemented the Nintendo library so damn well...and even rivaled Nintendo's best stuff (kart racing, 3D platforming). In their prime they were just about irreplaceable.

However, RARE was only one of the constituents affected by Iwata's restructuring. RARE, Left Field Productions, and Silicon Knights were all dropped as Nintendo affiliated studios. Nintendo also ended its relationship with Factor 5....

And since then Nintendo consoles have missed out on AAA Star Wars, sports titles, and crazy sensations like Minecraft.

I can't imagine that Nintendo would do better than what MS is doing with KI now.

If Nintendo had KI they would probably be Smash Bros characters

 

[Calamari41]

Nintendo released "Donkey Kong Racing DS" featuring all of the DKR characters, except Banjo and Conker.

And the US Patent Office said that Nintendo owned Banjo, because they published it.

And "Rare published Conker", but pre-release Conker 64 was apparently owned by "Rare Partnership", composed of Rare Acquisition Inc (a Nintendo property), Rare Coin-It Inc (a Nintendo property), and Rareware Ltd (the second party). This trademark was then dropped and refiled as simply belonging to "Rare Limited" (a Nintendo property).

After Microsoft bought Rare, Conker's IP was dropped by Rare Limited and picked up by Microsoft.

I'm just talking about the "rules" they followed in how they divided them up in the deal, not who legally owned what before the purchase.

In the end it's just entities negotiating with each other.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Star Fox Adventures (2002) has an 82 Metacritic score (out of 39 critics).

hahahaha what

Fucking game reviewers, man, lol

 

[The Giant]

Nintendo really needs someone like Left Field again.

I bet that Left Field Productions regrets buying back nintendo's shares to become independent. SInce they left nintendo, they haven't really done anything worth wild and have basically become a forgotten developer.

 

[CastorTroy]

Yeah, Rare made all those amazing games for Microsoft. Nintendo is still hurting from the lack of those huge successes.

 

[DanteGhost]

What's up with the hate towards Star Fox: Adventures? I personally think is a pretty decent game, and graphically it was amazing at the time.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

What's up with the hate towards Star Fox: Adventures? I personally think is a pretty decent game, and graphically it was amazing at the time.

The game was basically done in 98, but because of Nintendo fuckery they had the brilliant idea to axe a game that was already done, re-shoe it to Gamecube because with star fox characters because the new console was launching without a steady stream of content.

I would have been furious if I was working on that game and being told to do that.

 

[To Far Away Times]

Rare's talent exodus was happening throughout the N64 days. Buying Rare would have been buying a name, rather than getting games from the people who made great games.

Just ask Microsoft.

 

[industrian]

With this incredibly relevant and timely discussion, I now expect to see a thread titled "Squaresoft breaking up with Nintendo: in hindsight it hurt more than we think"

 

[Durock]

Rare's talent exodus was happening throughout the N64 days. Buying Rare would have been buying a name, rather than getting games from the people who made great games.

Just ask Microsoft.

This is not true. At all. I don't know where this stuff started and how so many people think all of Rare's talent was gone. Only a handful of people that was working on Perfect Dark left. That's it. The majority of Rare's staff was still there when Microsodt purchased them and it remained that way for several years after.

 

[Cheerilee]

Yeah, Rare made all those amazing games for Microsoft. Nintendo is still hurting from the lack of those huge successes.

Half of the games Rare had in the works for GameCube were wrecked by being cancelled and moved to Xbox, and then cancelled again and moved to Xbox 360. And by the point, Microsoft had started to break Rare with an incompatible corporate culture.


And then if we look at Nintendo, Rare got sold in 2002.

In 2003, the company conceded that it had made mistakes with the GameCube by not ensuring a consistent flow of attractive new games for the console.

In 2007, Iwata said...

"When we launched GameCube, the initial sales were good, and all the hardware we manufactured at that time were sold through. However, after this period, we could not provide the market with strong software titles in a timely fashion. As a result we could not leverage the initial launch time momentum, and sales of GameCube slowed down. To avoid repeating this with Wii, we have been intensifying the software development, both internally at Nintendo and at developers outside the company, in order to prepare aggressive software lineup for Wii at and after the launch."

Iwata later conceded again that NCL couldn't keep up with the exclusive games needed for Wii, and said he would fix that for Wii U, and we all know how that turned out. Even with Rare being as damaged as they are now, it's hard to say that Nintendo doesn't need them today.


Iwata has said that he doesn't like to buy studios, because the people involved can jump ship and then you're left with nothing, but Rare and it's people had been living with Nintendo quite happily for a decade, and the only reason they left is because they needed a wedding ring and Nintendo got cold feet.

 

[Durock]

Half of the games Rare had in the works for GameCube were wrecked by being cancelled and moved to Xbox, and then cancelled again and moved to Xbox 360. And by the point, Microsoft had started to break Rare with an incompatible corporate culture.


And then if we look at Nintendo, Rare got sold in 2002.

In 2003, the company conceded that it had made mistakes with the GameCube by not ensuring a consistent flow of attractive new games for the console.

In 2007, Iwata said...

"When we launched GameCube, the initial sales were good, and all the hardware we manufactured at that time were sold through. However, after this period, we could not provide the market with strong software titles in a timely fashion. As a result we could not leverage the initial launch time momentum, and sales of GameCube slowed down. To avoid repeating this with Wii, we have been intensifying the software development, both internally at Nintendo and at developers outside the company, in order to prepare aggressive software lineup for Wii at and after the launch."

Iwata later conceded again that NCL couldn't keep up with the exclusive games needed for Wii, and said he would fix that for Wii U, and we all know how that turned out. Even with Rare being as damaged as they are now, it's hard to say that Nintendo doesn't need them today.


Iwata has said that he doesn't like to buy studios, because the people involved can jump ship and then you're left with nothing, but Rare and it's people had been living with Nintendo quite happily for a decade, and the only reason they left is because they needed a wedding ring and Nintendo got cold feet.

Nintendo didn't have these problems when Rare was developing on their platforms. And this dates all the way back to the NES ere, where developed more games on the platform than any other developer, aside from Nintendo themselves. Yes, that includes Capcom.

The two companies just worked so well together and their software complimented the hardware perfectly and also ensured there was always a blockbuster hit in-store at just about any given time. If Nintendo didn't have a big, blockbuster hit ready for Fall or Summer, Rare did. If Rare didn't have something ready, then Nintendo did. I have no reason to believe this trend would not have continue on GameCube, Wii, and even now on Wii U.

Nintendo has always needed Rare but they never realized I guess just how much so until they were gone.

 

[animax]

Thanks to Nintendo selling Rare after good part of the talent went away to make their own company, we got Metroid Prime. It was a win-win for Nintendo.

This. I'd take Retro Studios over Rare any day.

Plus Rare would never have been able to continue with its creativity in todays gaming environment anyway, regardless of whether or not Nintendo kept them on board.

 

[digdug2k]

Revisionist history at best. Rare wasn't in any way "declining", and far, far, FAR from "dead weight". Star Fox Adventures sucked because Nintendo came in and demanded the game be rebranded as Zelda Lite Starring Star Fox.

A few key members left the team by then, but that's what people do, that's not unique to Rare. A lot of "key people" to Metroid Prime have left as well, and we're not going around calling Retro "a shell of their former selves".

Rare's output on the XBox declined because of Microsoft's meddling. They weren't in a decline on their own. Grabbed by the Ghoulies, for instance, turned out shit for that reason. But Kameo was a perfectly decent launch title that would've undoubtedly had an amazing sequel if they had made one. Viva Pinata was great and so was Nuts & Bolts. Their work with Avatars and Kinect Sports was largely mandated by Microsoft (despite what they like to say). In short, they got worse because MS mishandled them when they got more "hands-on". When they were more hands-off they put out quality stuff still.

Rare to this day still has some talent from their "early" days floating around. They can continue to put out quality titles if MS would let them do it, which at the moment looks like is what's happening. If the games are non-Kinect-Sports and they turn out crappy then yes, I'm ready to call Rare dead, but not until they've had another chance post-Nuts-&-Bolts to make something truly great.

The whole "they were dead when Nintendo let them go" is just revisionist history. They were far from dead. That's just a silly narrative Nintendo fans like to push to feel better about Nintendo and Rare parting ways, but the reality is that yes, Nintendo did hurt quite a lot losing Rare during the GameCube era. Rare also hurt when they had to deal with MS's bullshit. It was a bad decision from Nintendo to not buy them outright when they had the chance, because it ended up hurting both companies in the end.

This feels pretty revisionist to me. I mean, I remember being shocked when they were sold and thinking it was crazy, but their output WAS in decline. I think that started with the release of DK64. But at the very least, their pace had dropped dramatically between 1999 and 2001. I assume some of that was from the transition to the GC, and some of it was from a bunch of staff leaving a little before. But it wasn't like they left at the top of their game. I think most people just assumed Nintendo had some inside information that basically said they knew the studio was dying, and MS thought the brand name was worth it regardless.

 

[Durock]

This feels pretty revisionist to me. I mean, I remember being shocked when they were sold and thinking it was crazy, but their output WAS in decline. I think that started with the release of DK64. But at the very least, their pace had dropped dramatically between 1999 and 2001. I assume some of that was from the transition to the GC, and some of it was from a bunch of staff leaving a little before. But it wasn't like they left at the top of their game. I think most people just assumed Nintendo had some inside information that basically said they knew the studio was dying, and MS thought the brand name was worth it regardless.

Their output had declined? Jet Force Gemini, Conker, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Mickey's Speedway USA... All of those games released from Rare in that time frame, and that's not including Game Boy Color games. All of which sold millions, minus Conker and that was likely due to less advertising and it launching at the end of the console life cycle. I see no decline there.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Their output had declined? Jet Force Gemini, Conker, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Mickey's Speedway USA... All of those games released from Rare in that time frame, and that's not including Game Boy Color games. All of which sold millions, minus Conker and that was likely due to less advertising and it launching at the end of the console life cycle. I see no decline there.

Seriously. I never saw any talk about Rare declining at the time. They released a hotly anticipated sequel, they released a spiritual successor to their biggest shooter, they released a new platformer that is well-loved to this day - what was their output lacking? What more could they have done? It really just sounds like Nintendo fans justifying Nintendo's decision.

 

[PtM]

From what I know, Nintendo couldn't just have bought those 51% that easily. Here's how it supposedly went down:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/activision-s-deal-to-steal-rare-collapsed/0108032

Microsoft had to dig deep into its reserves of cash to buy Rare at $375 million – a figure often remarked on for its exorbitance.

But Fries reveals, for the first time, why the offers were so inordinately pricey.

“Nintendo owned half of Rare, and had an option to buy the other half. By the time we started getting interested, that option had passed its deadline and effectively expired, though Nintendo had argued for a temporary extension, which they got.

“That extension began to expire again, and by that point us and Activision got involved in the conversation to acquire Rare. Still at this point, Nintendo had the priority option to buy the other half of Rare at the price we were offering.

“So, there’s a problem; if we drive a hard bargain and put in a low price for Rare, Nintendo would have the chance to buy at that low price and probably would. So, the price was high.”

 

[Cheerilee]

From what I know, Nintendo couldn't just have bought those 51% that easily. Here's how it supposedly went down:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/activision-s-deal-to-steal-rare-collapsed/0108032

As was mentioned in that quote, Nintendo had absolute first dibs on buying Rare. Nintendo said "Pass. Not interested. But if anyone else is interested in buying you, please give us first dibs again."

Microsoft and Activision got into a bidding war over Rare, and then Activision pulled out, but Microsoft didn't use this opportunity to lower their bid, because they wanted to keep the high bidding-war price up to scare Nintendo away, since Rare was still giving Nintendo the "dibs" advantage.

$375 million was called "exorbitant", but Nintendo had a chance to pay less than half of that amount to secure the company, with no outside interference, and they let that chance slip away. They even had first dibs on keeping Rare after they learned what companies like Activision and Microsoft thought Rare was worth.

And if I'm reading Nintendo's 2002 financials right, Nintendo earned about $675 million that year, and was sitting on about $7.5 billion worth of pure cash.

And every year from 2003 to 2015, they've complained that they just can't seem to make enough games.