I thought it was the fact the Stamper Brothers wanted to sell the other half of Rare and Nintendo didn't want to share them?
I thought Blast Corps for N64 was the fucking shit.
Didn't Nintendo have an opportunity to buy that 51% before it was sold to MS, though, and they passed?That's my take on it as well. The bit about their productivity being poor was just an excuse to give the shareholders: there's no way Nintendo can look at such a small studio being able to release 4 3D platformers in under 3 years as being unproductive. Nintendo can't even manage that.
That's all true, but Nintendo didn't even give Rare a chance to pick up the pace post 2000. They forced them to retool Dinosaur Planet, which must have set the release date back considerably, and then Kameo had to be pushed back because of the Microsoft deal and Donkey Kong Racing, one of the first Gamecube titles ever shown, was outright cancelled. I just think its hypocritical for Nintendo to call Rare's later productivity "slow" when their own studios like Intelligent Systems and HAL can't meet the pace Rare had set.
And about that graph: I thinks it only fair if its compared against a graph of Nintendo's own first-party output during the same years.
It's hard to verify how productive they would've of been if they'd stuck with Nintendo.
From what I vaguely know, they were working on Donkey Kong Racing, Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo for Gamecube before the buy out? All of which could of feasibly been released for GC. Obviously, DKR got completely canned (or scaled down dramatically to Banjo Pilot?), development for Grabbed by the Ghoulies started properly, while PDZ and Kameo were reworked for 360. Who knows what internal stuff was going on at the time.
I'm not as confident as you that all of those games would have come out without delays -- I'm sure at least some would have seen lengthy delays before release -- but yeah, it was bad timing.Rare was sold when they had Star Fox Adventures, Donkey Kong Racing, Diddy Kong Pilot, Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, and Perfect Dark Zero (a version that actually looked sort of appealing!) all in development at once.
The killer is that pretty much all of those games were in playable form or were very very close. Rare being sold during that post-BFD dry spell is exactly WHY the buyout was so devastating - because there was an unprecedentedly-gigantic tidal wave of awesome stuff on the horizon. (And unlike with Microsoft, it all would have sold well too.)
(Even Ghoulies...maybe.)
KI will sell tons too...
The horror story there is Blast Corps' numbers.
Wasn't Kameo: Elements of Power originally intended for N64 or "Dolphin" before the switch?
Blast Corps was amazing and fun. It was like the 2nd game I bought on the N64.
Nintendo wasn't concerned with Rare's output at the beginning of the gen. Their output dropped near the end, and their returns on games weren't worth the long development times. Conker in particular was a massive bomb relative to how long it took to make.
Isn't it free to play?
Demo is F2P meaning anyone who plays the demo could buy only a little portion if they want to
You can buy the full game, in some form or another.
F2P is a powerful business model.
If Ghoulies had ended up as a 3d platformer with both of the characters playable, as it was originally meant to be, yes, I think it could have been fine.
as far as i know you essentially buy everything the game offers for a reduced price in one package (like a retail game) or you buy what you want in bits and pieces if that suits your fancyThere is actually a full game that you can download or buy physically? Or do you mean that the game is free to play, and you can buy the full game by purchasing all the various items and characters and other content, etc..?
as far as i know you essentially buy everything the game offers for a reduced price in one package (like a retail game) or you buy what you want in bits and pieces if that suits your fancy
no physical edition
they're announcing the roster slowly. next reveal is in 10 days
The problem was that Rare's output was slowing down. They'd been great in the N64 generation, releasing 11 games in 4 1/2 years. That's quite good production, given their size. Some major Nintendo first parties, such as HAL and Intelligent Systems, did much, MUCH worse, and Rare's games were key to carrying the N64 in the West, after EAD itself had issues (think of how Rare released four major, high quality 3d platformers during a period where EAD managed to release zero!). After that, however, Rare's releases slowed to a crawl.
Yes it was. Here is what happened. Nintendo was getting tired of Rares productivity so their idea to jumpstart Rare was to create an equal western studio studio and create a bit of a rivalry. The idea for this was for each studio to come out with a AAA game every other year. Unfortunately their new Western studio was an absolute fucking disaster that was lucky to survive its first few years under their furst run of management. Rare never took noticed of their new supposed rivals. Nintendo needed to cut their losses in this whole mess of events and got rid of Rare who they were tired of. Meanwhile Retro survived and went onto make a few classics.
I'm considering an idea for a thread all about Rare's planned GC and GBA line-up, and see if we can pull together every little detail possible about what could have been, because there's quite a bit.
Conker bombed because there was no market for Porkies on the N64.I do question how much of that is on Rare and not Nintendo. The N64 had some very bad droughts and this is what caused people to start looking at the PlayStation 1 since there were more games. Then the PS2 launched before the GameCube. It could be argued the customer base just decreased over time and Rare was the victim of that but the actual cause was Nintendo and the decisions they made with the N64. Then they get cut loose sadly instead of Nintendo trying to fix the real problem.
Yes. It's NPD, 8m is probably WWIs that graph US sales only? It looks way off. I've heard many times that Goldeneye sold 8 million for example.
Didn't Nintendo have an opportunity to buy that 51% before it was sold to MS, though, and they passed?
I agree with you, Nintendo was part of the problem, and cancelling Donkey Kong Racing and moving Kameo and PDZ to Xbox and then 360 certainly pushed back development a lot. I highly doubt that Kameo and PDZ would have taken until late 2005 as Gamecube games. GbtG... I don't know where it was when Rare was sold, but it certainly had to at least have been started, though it hadn't been announced of course. I know I've heard it was initially a 3d platformer, but after the sale to MS they unfortunately changed genres, and it didn't work out well. Between SF Adventures, GbtG, and Conker Xbox (fine game, but it's just a remake) Rare definitely had a very hard 6th gen. But, as you say, if Kameo, PDZ, and Donkey Kong Racing had all been released that gen too, it would look better. PDZ's a flawed game, but still, it's probably not quite as badly flawed as GbtG anyway, and maybe also SF Adventures... and I like Kameo. Should be a longer game considering how long it took to make, but it's good.
Anyway, ideally, I think that Dinosaur Planet should have been left as an N64 game. In the US Nintendo gave up on the N64 (ie, stopped releasing first-party games for it) about six months before the Gamecube released, and I think that that was a mistake. They should have released a few more games for it, in the US particularly, including Dinosaur Planet, Sin & Punishment, and Animal Forest (Crossing).
Past that, don't sell Rare of course. Deal with the fact that they were having a tough generation transition, just like HAL, EAD, and Intelligent Systems all had the previous generation. I think it'd have been worth it... Rare would have released games a bit more quickly (no need to can a game and platform-shift so many games), and their game sales would certainly have been better. Just look at that chart, at how much better on average their Nintendo-console games sold than their MS ones. Their sales would not have collapsed nearly as badly. It's too bad that Nintendo left them go instead. It fit with the theme of the generation, which was that Nintendo was abandoning its close Western while building up ties to a bunch of Japanese developers instead, but they should have done both, not one instead of the other.
Oh, and no, Banjo Pilot was a different game; Rare's handheld and console teams were not the same. The game did get downscaled, as it started out in polygonal 3d and then they downgraded it to Mode 7 style, but I don't think it was ever meant to be a version of Donkey Kong Racing...
I'm not as confident as you that all of those games would have come out without delays -- I'm sure at least some would have seen lengthy delays before release -- but yeah, it was bad timing.
If Ghoulies had ended up as a 3d platformer with both of the characters playable, as it was originally meant to be, yes, I think it could have been fine. I mean, the graphics are great, the art design is great, it's the genre and gameplay that's the problem... and if Rare had instead stuck to something they knew well, it could have been just fine.
And yeah, the GC version of PDZ did look better than the 360 game ended up being, didn't it.
You are ignoring the fact that game development was much more complex and time consuming by the time Retro started on the Prime trilogy. Retro made amazing games in a very reasonable time span (during the Prime years).
Yes it was. Here is what happened. Nintendo was getting tired of Rares productivity so their idea to jumpstart Rare was to create an equal western studio studio and create a bit of a rivalry. The idea for this was for each studio to come out with a AAA game every other year. Unfortunately their new Western studio was an absolute fucking disaster that was lucky to survive its first few years under their furst run of management.
I do question how much of that is on Rare and not Nintendo. The N64 had some very bad droughts and this is what caused people to start looking at the PlayStation 1 since there were more games. Then the PS2 launched before the GameCube. It could be argued the customer base just decreased over time and Rare was the victim of that but the actual cause was Nintendo and the decisions they made with the N64. Then they get cut loose sadly instead of Nintendo trying to fix the real problem.
Quoting myself as I want to know if others are fine with this idea?
11 games in 5 years is poor productivity?
So how/why did MS allow Rare to make GBA and DS games?
So how/why did MS allow Rare to make GBA and DS games?
So how/why did MS allow Rare to make GBA and DS games?
Nope, it was Diddy Kong Pilot that was retooled into Banjo-Pilot (and even then, it went through two builds as DKP and then another two as BP). Donkey Kong Racing was completely sent to the trash bin.Obviously, DKR got completely canned (or scaled down dramatically to Banjo Pilot?)
Comparatively though? Its not like making video games was a breeze then, either. I won't argue that the Prime games weren't made in a reasonable time span. But it shouldn't take three years to make a new DKC game, even with all the intricacies of modern game development (which is so much grueling than the days of 16-bit game development!).
When they let them go rare had put out star fox adventure which is, despite some justified criticism a slid game with amazing production values and had kameo and donkey kong racing in the pipeline
Well to be fair they did wonders without rare saleswise. However having rare developing banjo, pdz etc. For wiiu would have been great.
Nope, it was Diddy Kong Pilot that was retooled into Banjo-Pilot (and even then, it went through two builds as DKP and then another two as BP). Donkey Kong Racing was completely sent to the trash bin.
This is why it happened, in truth. The Stamper Brothers wanted out of video games period and wanted to sell up. They went to Nintendo and said this, and their asking price was far more than Nintendo was willing to pay.
Nintendo only owned 49% of Rare, so if one buyer was willing to purchase the Stamper 51%, their status as a (generally) Nintendo-only developer would be threatened. Because Nintendo wasn't willing to pay the price the Stampers asked for, Nintendo decided to sell their half as well.
Microsoft bought the lot - 49% off Nintendo and 51% off the Stampers. EA and Activision were both mooted for it at the time as well, initially when the Stampers were just selling 51% - but in that situation those publishers probably would've wanted games on more than Nintendo systems, and it would've been a fight with Nintendo still owning just under half - so that's why Nintendo sold.
I think had the Stampers not wanted to move on, Rare would still be with Nintendo to this day.
So how/why did MS allow Rare to make GBA and DS games?