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[OldBoyGamer]

they missmanaged them that's for sure.

they gave them too much freedom... people often say that Microsoft changed Rare and made them create bad games, when the opposite is true, Rare was finally themselves and the high standards Nintendo had were gone... so they made really weird games and many of them just weren't really well received.

it's always funny when people cone with that stupid argument that Microsoft had their hands in what Rare made since they bought them, when it's very easy to see that that's complete bullshit...
what publisher who is out to make money force them to make something super out there and niche like Viva Pinata?
or would a publisher like that let them make Remakes of Nintendo games for a Nintendo handheld?

no, they let them just run free and the quality control wasn't strict enough, they didn't push them to make good games enough...
that's how I see it

This post doesn’t make sense.
You quote VP and mention quality control. VP was a highly polished game of high quality. Might not have sold millions but you can’t wuestion its quality.

Also, I’m pretty sure MS forced Rare to become their first party output for Kinect.

For me, that seems to be where it all went wrong. The Kinect games we’re niche.

Grabbed by the ghoulies was also pretty polished. As was Kameo.

The problem I think was that Rare we’re still making Nintendo games for a console that isn’t Nintendo. Then they switched to Kinect and it all went wrong.

I think SoT has been a success in that 8 million people have played it. But it got a lot of criticism when first released about lack of anything to do. What we don’t know is how much it made. It fluctuates on sales between £25 and £20. And it free on XBPass.

Im not sure what’s next for them tbh. SoT May have another year left in it. But after that?

 

[OldBoyGamer]

btw this is some consipracy theory bs :

• The studio isn't "amazing" - relatively luxurious staff facilities are common today
• "plaques and awards" - really, like every other studio ..
• "in the middle of the English countryside on a massive plot of land that's surrounded by dense vegetation" - it's a converted country house plus extensions - formerly "cliff house" https://maps.nls.uk/view/101592561 - this is normal
• "a very long, very narrow one-way road that's heavily secured at its entrance"
  • it's the original road from century ago . the reason it's long is because the (present main road) A444 'bypass' was built along side
  • "one way road" .. ?
  • "heavily secured at its entrance" - it's got (open) gates and security cameras . ok
• "and a small, "hidden" lot for what seems like vans and trucks" - this is my favorite - you mean like a unloading bay for catering vans ..
• "expensive, massive HQ on an expensive , massive property, while also treating it like Ft. Knox?" ok hyperbole . I know you.

Not really sure where this paragraph was going.. .. but it felt it was going somewhere, somewhere a lot darker. Tell us what's really happening there. Tell the world.

Rare was born out of an old games studio called Ultimate. They were one of the most successful 8 bit devs, especially in the UK on the ZX Spectrum computer.

Ultimate we’re an incredibly secretive developer/publisher and it was rare (pun intended) for them to give interviews. To the point that they became a bit mythical in status.

So I can see where this comes from.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

But that's barely anything in comparison to Donkey Kong Country for example, which sold almost twice as much. That's what Nintendo looked at. Nintendo was also forced to include the Expansion Pak due to a memory leak in the game, discovered late in development, causing the game to crash during playtesting (the game's team was basically inexperienced - again, not the old guard).

Combined with the fact that development costs were rising exponentially, and it's clear they were getting a burden. When you look at the list of 45 best-selling Nintendo 64 titles on Wikipedia, Rare's presence is laughable at best. Only five made it in the top 20 and four in the top 10.

I’m shocked that you think a single studio having 25% and 40% respectively in those top lists isn’t amazing! 8O

 

[EightBit Man]

OldBoyGamer Well, I'm not impressed. Take into account that both GoldenEye 007 and Donkey Kong 64 were sold as pack-in titles, and I'm even less so. This was a developer Nintendo had high hopes for after a brief resurrection of the Super NES' success, and they ultimately failed to live up to that. These are the facts, no matter how fond I am of some of these games.

List of best-selling Nintendo 64 video games only lists 7 games made by Rare (out of 45), two of them just reached a million units sold, and 4 didn't even make the list. Let that sink in.

 

[Free will knight]

Having ignored Grabbed By The Ghoullies for the OG Xbox, and coming in with low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by the HD remaster in Rare Replay. The gameplay and level design in GBTG is solid, the cell shaded graphics have a modern/timeless look and it has that Spielberg-esque/Rare magical quality to the music, graphics and presentation.

I also thought Rare did a great job with Conker Live and Reloaded. The updated graphics were amazing and the multiplayer portion was in the mix as one of the better multiplayer games on Live at the time.

Sea of Thieves has also been great as well. It has a unique multiplayer experience that can’t be found anywhere else and the graphics and music have that signature Rare magic. Kudos to Rare for also providing tons of updates and content to SoT, with no signs of slowing down.

I’m actually really looking forward to what Rare comes up with for next gen and to see how far they take Sea of Thieves.

That will be because Robin Beanland composed the music for the game and he's been at rare since 1994.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

OldBoyGamer Well, I'm not impressed. Take into account that both GoldenEye 007 and Donkey Kong 64 were sold as pack-in titles, and I'm even less so. This was a developer Nintendo had high hopes for after a brief resurrection of the Super NES' success, and they ultimately failed to live up to that. These are the facts, no matter how fond I am of some of these games.

List of best-selling Nintendo 64 video games only lists 7 games made by Rare (out of 45), two of them just reached a million units sold, and 4 didn't even make the list. Let that sink in.

Yes but aren’t the console sales of the SNES and N64 wildly different? The player base for N64 was far smaller no?

Edit
Quick check on google puts the SNES at just under 50M and the N64 at just over 30M.

It’s worth pointing out that the N64 was much maligned at the time outside of the hard fan base. I’d like to see sales comparisons for the entire N64 top 20.

 

[EightBit Man]

Yes but aren’t the console sales of the SNES and N64 wildly different? The player base for N64 was far smaller no?

Edit
Quick check on google puts the SNES at just under 50M and the N64 at just over 30M.

It’s worth pointing out that the N64 was much maligned at the time outside of the hard fan base. I’d like to see sales comparisons for the entire N64 top 20.

That's right. The Nintendo 64 itself did not meet Nintendo's expectations either. If you take that into consideration too, you'll understand that their business relationship was not going to last much longer. At some point they were costing more money than they brought in. Fortunately Nintendo had deep pockets, and was willing to remain partners, but it was basically a done deal after Banjo-Kazooie.

I also have a nagging suspicion Hiroshi Yamauchi was so disappointed by Rare, that he could say things like third-parties being "useless companies" in the early 2000s. I don't believe Rare was a great place to work at during the development of Dinosaur Planet. What's clear is that Nintendo were tired of Rare's new franchises that didn't sell well, lowering sales of established franchises, the exodus of key staff over the years (thanks to the Stampers' reign), the fact that they had to add a peripheral for a game to work well, and the long development cycles of some of their worst-selling games.

 

[Deleted member 738976]

A shame we couldn't see them push Nintendo hardware like they did for the 64. They would have done great stuff on the 3DS but they never got a chance to.

 

[dirthead]

It's easily one of the worst buys in all of gaming.

All the talent left as soon as Microsoft bought them. I don't even see how the deal was legal, honestly.

If you buy a company, and all its talent leaves 30 seconds after the sale goes through, how the fuck was the company's valuation accurate?

 

[Ma-Yuan]

I also asked my self for years why is Rare still around. What are they doing and who is stell left to do what ever they do but which is not comming to fruition . . .

From a business standpoint I can't see them being kept alive.

My idea is that MS just fears the outrage that they killed rare after they already poached it . . .

 

[Starbuck2907]

I thought they made all the dlc for Xbox avatar characters (forgot the actual name). Which is probably time consuming but profitable.

Also, MS seem to tell them to make products that fit certain genres or fill gaps in their gaming lineup than let them have tons of freedom. I’m sure they have some freedom, but likely within certain parameters.

 

[Stuart360]

I also asked my self for years why is Rare still around. What are they doing and who is stell left to do what ever they do but which is not comming to fruition . . .

From a business standpoint I can't see them being kept alive.

My idea is that MS just fears the outrage that they killed rare after they already poached it . . .

You get Rare threads quite often on here. Its strange how the Rare name still seems to mean somehting to a lot of gamers, even though they havent really released anything substantial apart from SOT in well over 10 years. Also most of the talent supposedly left them years ago (i dont know if thats actually ture, but thats what everyone keeps saying).
I think Microsoft probably still see them as somewhat valuable long term, even if on name only.

 

[xool]

It's easily one of the worst buys in all of gaming.

All the talent left as soon as Microsoft bought them. I don't even see how the deal was legal, honestly.

If you buy a company, and all its talent leaves 30 seconds after the sale goes through, how the fuck was the company's valuation accurate?

Employees part of a company's assets .. yep that's actually indistinguishable from slavery..

"Buyer Beware" is business 101

You get Rare threads quite often on here. Its strange how the Rare name still seems to mean something to a lot of gamers, even though they havent really released anything substantial apart from SOT in well over 10 years.

Rare, as a successor to "Ultimate Play the Game" is part of British videogamer history, right back to the ZX Spectrum era c.1982. Add the Nintendo era on top plus rose-tinted childhood memories and there you go. (The only other survivor I can think of is Frontier Developments via David Braben)

One thing that is historically notable about Ultimate was their use/control of hype/publicity back in the day when the UK software scene was pretty amateur. The UK press use to crawl up their ass too, probably those full page color ads in magazines like Crash helped too..

Their box art (and packaging) was top level for the time (don't look to close it doesn't stand up to close inspection, like the original Doom cover)

 

[OldBoyGamer]

That's right. The Nintendo 64 itself did not meet Nintendo's expectations either. If you take that into consideration too, you'll understand that their business relationship was not going to last much longer. At some point they were costing more money than they brought in. Fortunately Nintendo had deep pockets, and was willing to remain partners, but it was basically a done deal after Banjo-Kazooie.

I also have a nagging suspicion Hiroshi Yamauchi was so disappointed by Rare, that he could say things like third-parties being "useless companies" in the early 2000s. I don't believe Rare was a great place to work at during the development of Dinosaur Planet. What's clear is that Nintendo were tired of Rare's new franchises that didn't sell well, lowering sales of established franchises, the exodus of key staff over the years (thanks to the Stampers' reign), the fact that they had to add a peripheral for a game to work well, and the long development cycles of some of their worst-selling games.

Well, I don't know what went down, but you're right in saying something must have - because they did sell them.
It could have been the sheer amount of money was so much that all the other shareholders leaned on Nintendo to sell. (It was an eye watering $350M dollars if I recall? How much would that be in today's money??)

You might be right, I don't know. But I'm just not quite convinced that they sold Rare because they were unhappy with them. Even most of Rare's final games on the N64 reviewed pretty well. Conker is coming up as 90+, Mickey's speedway was mixed, Banjo Tooie averaged just under 90? Donky Kong is coming in at 90, Gemini 80's (not great, but not exactly awful), Perfect Dark 90+.

I mean, at some point you gotta look at the publisher and think 'you're not doing a great job at selling well reviewing games!'
I get that there have always been really good games that don't sell well, but in Rare's case, you're talking about several!

 

[Deleted member 740922]

Personally, I've never liked their art style (apart from the 1983 Spectrum games). The Xbox avatar things were horrific, Sea of Thieves looks grim (that font for the logo is dreadful for a start)....just not for me at all

 

[xool]

Personally, I've never liked their art style (apart from the 1983 Spectrum games). The Xbox avatar things were horrific, Sea of Thieves looks grim (that font for the logo is dreadful for a start)....just not for me at all

Sea of Thieves looks like cell-shaded pirate Fable 2 to me . sure they must have picked up some Lionhead refugees.

I too want(ed) Avatars, and that artstyle to go die in a ditch.

 

[GreenAlien]

Maybe Rare as a "gaming company" is only a cover by now and their main output are surveillance tools or something.. /conspiracy

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

Wow I had no idea Microsoft paid that much for Rare.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

Wow I had no idea Microsoft paid that much for Rare.

Looks like it was more:
"on 24 September 2002 Microsoft purchased Rare for $375 million "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_(company)

Obviously it's Wikipedia, so double checking needed before you go to court over it.