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[GarthVaderUK]

Part 1: http://www.videogamer.com/features/article/04-08-2008-481.html
Part 2: http://www.videogamer.com/features/article/05-08-2008-483.html
Part 3: http://www.videogamer.com/features/article/06-08-2008-485.html
Part 4: http://www.videogamer.com/features/article/07-08-2008-487.html
Part 5: http://www.videogamer.com/features/article/08-08-2008-489.html

Rare: Half the studio working on secret projects
Developer remains tight-lipped over the identity of secret titles, but says we'll hear about then 'soon enough'.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com at the Develop conference in Brighton last week, Nick Burton, a senior software engineer at Rare, revealed that currently announced Rare titles only account for half the development studio.

Asked directly if Rare would be making a second Kameo title Burton replied: "This is where I have to be enigmatically vague. Never say never. I'll say that I'm not working on one at the moment. I'm not working on one at the moment. Doesn't mean nobody else is, but that doesn't mean they are either. Sorry. For the obvious PR reasons we can't talk about what we're doing now."

He went on to suggest that there's plenty going on behind closed doors at Rare that should have gamers getting very excited.

"All I can say is, you know about VP2 (Viva Piñata Trouble in Paradise), Viva Piñata on DS, Banjo obviously. There's a couple of things on the roster that are going to be pretty cool as well. Obviously you do the math. Look at the size and how big the Banjo team currently needs to be, how big our shared technology group and asset group are. Look at the number of games and how they're staggered and how many teams we have. There's about half the studio missing from the release schedule at the moment (laughs)," said Burton.

He continued: "You'll be hearing soon enough, which is what I can't say really. It's not going to be too long. It's always exciting but we just have to be careful. As a developer it's a pain in the arse to be honest sometimes, because you want to go out and go "yeah! Yeah!" I really want to tell everybody about this because what I'm working on at the moment is really cool."

http://www.videogamer.com/news/05-08-2008-9006.html

Rare dev: 'I don't think 360 has reached its limit'
Graphics programmers are doing things now they didn't feel were possible at the start of this generation.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com at the Develop conference in Brighton last week, Nick Burton, a senior software engineer at Rare, has assured Xbox 360 gamers that there's plenty more to come from the console.

"You never can push them as far as they can go. The reality of the peak performance of the console is yes, you could look to a generation beyond where we are now and think, yeah, I could use that power. But the reality is in 360 and the PS3 and the latest generation PC graphics, the amount of power in the GPUs is such that you're more bound by your creativity and the aesthetic you're going for than you're really bound by polygon pushing power," said Burton. "You're probably actually more bound maybe by art authoring and the amount of data throughput that, just the amount of memory you'd need, but I don't think 360 has reached its limit."

Regarding the capabilities of the Xbox 360, Burton noted that he's able to do things now that he thought impossible at the start of the generation.

"If you see some of the stuff we've done, in fact some of the stuff our guys have done, the GPU particle systems and things like, some of our guys have been working on the geometric style real time radiosity," explained Burton. "Even at the start of this generation, if you'd said to me, without actually me just looking at it and you were asking me off the cuff as a graphics programmer, could that happen, I'd have said no. And then you think, well, what's going to come next? You can still keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it."

http://www.videogamer.com/news/05-08-2008-9007.html

No Rare IP is Dead
Rare: 'stupid if we didn't' come back to Conker
Lunar Jetman on Live Arcade?
Rare dev wanted to start Kameo 2 immediately
Rare dev would love to bring back Dinosaur Planet

 

[thetrin]

Interesting news, but the misused apostrophe in the thread title is killing me.

 

[Psychotext]

Good to hear they're keeping busy.

 

[[Nintex]]

There's about half the studio missing from the release schedule at the moment (laughs)," said Burton.

That's because you fired the Sabreman Stampede team?

I think their next game will be a new Perfect Dark.

 

[dyls]

Nice. Now we just play the waiting game for, oh, say 6 years.

 

[RBH]

Conker sequel, plz.

 

[cw_sasuke]

A First Party Studio thinks that the console which there are are developing for hasn`t reached it`s limt yet...interesting

 

[APZonerunner]

Almost certain a new Perfect Dark will be in there with a huge focus on online, the rest is a bit of a toss up though. They've just come out with Viva Pinata and Kameo quite recently, so I think a new IP is unlikely, so more from the universes they've established, meaning it's gonna be:

more Viva Pinata
Conker
Killer Instinct
Kameo

I think a new PD is a cert, though.

 

[szaromir]

I'd like to see PD2.

 

[I_D]

Conker sequel, plz.

YES!


Note:
Only if it's a real sequel. None of that half-assed MP crap we had last time.

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

 

[MirageDwarf]

How about showing how far 360 can go then? We have yet to see wowsome looking impressive title from MS' first parties. Some of them have pretty art styles. And that's it.

 

[solid2snake]

Perfect Dark 2 plz, thx.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

Hopefully this means some more Rare titles hitting in 2009. Kameo 2 would be great but to be honest, I'll look forward to whatever they announce.

I'm still holding out for Goldeneye :/

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

How about showing how far 360 can go then? We have yet to see wowsome looking impressive title from MS' first parties. Some of them have pretty art styles. And that's it.

Look at the first gif I posted. It has draw distance, perfect picture IQ, tons of geometry, incredible textures and attention to detail. You don't have to strain your eye to see that, it is there in your face.

 

[gregor7777]

How about showing how far 360 can go then? We have yet to see wowsome looking impressive title from MS' first parties. Some of them have pretty art styles. And that's it.

One post above yours isn't impressive?

Wowsome, eh?

 

[thebagofsand]

Conker 2, Perfect Dark 2, and a new Jet Force Gemini please.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

A First Party Studio thinks that the console which there are are developing for hasn`t reached it`s limt yet...interesting

I know this is sarcasm, but you only need to look at Far Cry 2, Rage, RE 5, and Gears 2 to see that the 360 is still being pushed more and more every day compared to the stuff we got in 05-07..

As for rare's secret projects: Conker 2, Perfect Dark Initial Vector, and Killer Instinct 3 please.

 

[Shadowlink]

Conker and KI 3 Please

 

[szaromir]

How about showing how far 360 can go then? We have yet to see wowsome looking impressive title from MS' first parties. Some of them have pretty art styles. And that's it.

Banjo's engine is the best engine on 360 IMO. So much stuff going on at the same time.

OK, I read the interview. The guy's really excited about the current-gen technology and what's to come software wise.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

*Gifs and Pics*

Jinkies! Banjo is looking might fine. I really can't wait for the game to hit, I'm going through a bit of an apathetic stage at the moment with most of my 360 collection, after getting Wii and Mario Kart I just want to play stuff that is 'fun', rather than bloody and gritty. Banjo definitely looks like it'll fill that gap.

In the meantime, back to Lego Star Wars TCS!

 

[clashfan]

I remember Shane Kim saying Rare will be working on family titles so I doubt they will do a PD game. I'm thinking it's another Kameo game.

 

[krzyspc]

Maybe they are working on a sequal for Jet Force Gemini II, an online puzzle game?

 

[MirageDwarf]

Look at the first gif I posted. It has draw distance, perfect picture IQ, tons of geometry, incredible textures and attention to detail. You don't have to strain your eye to see that, it is there in your face.

One post above yours isn't impressive?

Wowsome, eh?

I think I've said often that I really like BK3. For game like that it is awesome with good art style. But there hasn't been any title as impressive as Gears which is from third party. You would assume that third parties won't be able to beat MS developed games since they developed hardware and been developing DirectX APIs which deals with hardware since more than a decade.

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

I remember Shane Kim saying Rare will be working on family titles so I doubt they will do a PD game. I'm thinking it's another Kameo game.

They are enough people to cover a lot of things.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

I would suggest the other half of the development studio is working on a mature title (not PD) and an XBLA title.

 

[Zzoram]

But there hasn't been any title as impressive as Gears which is from third party. You would assume that third parties won't be able to beat MS developed games since they developed hardware and been developing DirectX APIs which deals with hardware since more than a decade.

The Xbox 360 and Unreal Engine 3.0 were practically built for each other from the start. There's a reason that even to this day, Unreal Engine 3.0 runs better on Xbox 360. Microsoft worked very closely with Epic because they wanted Gears of War to be their flagship new IP.

Heck, the reason the Xbox 360 has the 512mb shared RAM it does is because Epic showed them what Gears of War would be like on 256mb vs 512mb.

 

[rollingstart]

360 isn't even 3 years finished. PS2 kept surprising even after 7 years with games like God of War 2.

And I do hope they give Perfect Dark another shot. Despite PDZ not being that great, I still think want them to try it again. Focus on making the entire game more like the second level (the nightclub) where you feel like a spy/secret agent.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Can't wait to see these titles launch on the 720.

 

[solid2snake]

I remember Shane Kim saying Rare will be working on family titles so I doubt they will do a PD game. I'm thinking it's another Kameo game.

Microsoft should stop copying this Nintendo BS and make more games for us hardcore gamerzzzz.

 

[burgerdog]

god like pictures

I said wow.

 

[Zzoram]

Can't wait to see these titles launch on the 720.

Realistically there is no way we are seeing new consoles until Winter 2011 at the earliest, and Winter 2012 is probably more reasonable. Microsoft is in it for the profit, or else they could've just priced the Xbox 360 even lower to grab marketshare.

Also, it is very probable that Microsoft is setting up for a huge hard drive (especially with the game-DVD rip feature now), migrating Gamertags and the linked purchased content, and selling both Xbox Originals and 360 Originals over XBLM on the next Xbox. That means they need pretty solid backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360, which would help it to continue to get new games and not just instantly die on the launch of the new console. That means the next Xbox is likely going to be a scaled up version of the current architecture.

 

[Zoso]

Woah, a long interview. I will have to read it later.

I'm happy to hear that they're working on more games though. Has me excited

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Grabbed by the Ghoulies 2, please.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

the amount of power in the GPUs is such that you're more bound by your creativity and the aesthetic you're going for than you're really bound by polygon pushing power

I've been saying this ever since Nintendo was like "The Wii won't focus on cutting-edge HD graphics!"

Games are at a point where hardware very rarely limits what you can do as far as the scope of your game. We have gamespaces nowadays that span, what? 25-50 square miles? While some people won't be satisfied until every inch of whole world is rendered, technology is at a point where game developers can think of the biggest thing possible and it can probably be done.

I mean, just look at Spore. The sorts of things that game is doing? Entire solar systems full of never ending worlds, populated by never ending creatures... on and on practically to infinity. Imagine the technology of Spore's creature creation applied to other game genres. The procedural animation systems, and all of that, present in say, a FPS or something. The idea that one could could pass around a simple-to-use monster creator to the entire development team in order to populate the game with hundreds of unique beings.

When I really start thinking about stuff like that, my mind reels at the possibilities.

 

[soldat7]

But there hasn't been any title as impressive as Gears which is from third party.

Have you not played PGR4?

 

[Gbeav]

For some reason I can't trust Rare in talking about development anymore. This is like asking the pope for info on the dinosaurs.

 

[Nolan.]

Man! Rare and Insomniac just don't stop do they.



I wonder if one is Kameo 2 with better art.

Have you not played PGR4?

3Rd party?

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

Can we please have a super M rated conker game without all of the bullshit censoring?

 

[soldat7]

3Rd party?

PGR4 is as third-party as Gears IMO. With the exception of Rare and Lionhead, does MS even have any true 'first-party' studios?

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Game_Studios#In-house_studios

Looks like there's a few more...

 

[MobiusPigeon]

did anyone else hope and wish for KI3 after seeing facebreaker in motion? the style of some of the characters is so close to the old prerendered characters in KI yet its all realtime.

 

[BLaZiN PRopHeT]

So from the interview real has 6+ internal studios? i thought they only had 4

 

[Digital-Hero]

Rare was doing amazing things at the start in 2005, can't wait to see more.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

did anyone else hope and wish for KI3 after seeing facebreaker in motion? the style of some of the characters is so close to the old prerendered characters in KI yet its all realtime.

Plastic and ugly? ;P

 

[Jethro]

I 'love' non news . Not very surprising words von Mr. Rareware.

 

[strikeselect]

Let's not forget the PD2 rumor that was floating around a while ago...

http://www.gameguru.in/action/2007/15/rumor-101-perfect-dark-2-xbox-360s-next-humungous-killer-app/

My sources tell me “Rare” will be back and ready to take the reigns from the Chief himself. The game is probably coming along considerably well and is a step up in the genre of first person shooters, cutting down on all the other festive string of words, Joanna dark is back in the “sequel” to the smash hit N64 game Perfect Dark.

Although most parts of the story are under wraps, I managed to get hold of a couple of hints to the game. Joanna’s character has got significant changes, she is darker than usual to give the player a feeling of a twisted edge and the entire game has tints of grey surrounding all the characters.

The world is now based on a morality system, choices are going to have a huge impact on the gameplay, giving players a variety branches in the storyline itself. (This was somewhat there in the previous games as well, but in those played out in terms of levels of difficulty).

The engine that is being used allows full interactivity with the environment, and there are probably going to be no cutscenes in the entire game, everything is going to be from the player’s perspective.

Half-life is the only game so far that can pull off such a trick and allow a pure sense of seamlessness in the entire game. The AI responds to emotions of fear and aggression of the player and its teammates.

An official announcement is due sometime during the latter part of next year. Gamasutra had a little chat with a couple of its key members and this is what they had to say about their next project:

“Hopefully our next game will be out…We’ll be able to talk about something next year, we hope Hopefully you’ll see something from us before next Christmas.”

At this point of time this is still a “big rumor” floating around so wait for the official announcement guys. It’s definitely going to be big as Halo with Microsoft pumping it all up, and will probably test Rare’s true potential with the next generation of games.

 

[Staccat0]

Jinkies! Banjo is looking might fine. I really can't wait for the game to hit, I'm going through a bit of an apathetic stage at the moment with most of my 360 collection, after getting Wii and Mario Kart I just want to play stuff that is 'fun', rather than bloody and gritty. Banjo definitely looks like it'll fill that gap.

In the meantime, back to Lego Star Wars TCS!

THis might make a fun thread. I went through this for probably a year starting before the Wii came out and it just seems to be ending now.I wonder how many other people on gaf get tired of that shit.

That said, I've never played a Banjo game so I'm not hyped for it.

 

[MCD]

i don't trust rare with fps, i'd rather they work on conker or something entirely new.

 

[Kill Your Masters]

Rare was doing amazing things at the start in 2005, can't wait to see more.

Oh yes Kameo was gorgeous and I played it 2007 after playing through Gears of War. I was still impressed.

The gifs and shots from Banjo further up here are also pretty sweet.

 

[Chinner]

geometric style real time radiosity

SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME. Those words sound fancy.