Rare sale 1 year later

[Engineer_J]

Okay I heard today on a fan site that Rare has unofficially/officially said Perfect Dark is going to be on X-Box 2. Since many here have X-Box's and are fans and now that it has been a whole year since MS bought Rare what do you think of the sale now? Did/has/will MS get their half a billion dollars worth of games out of them? Looking forward to any of the future Rare games? Will they sell or attract new fans to X-Box? Just curious. On the flipside was the sale good/bad for Nintendo, especially if Rare wanted to leave already.

[debz]

well I think nintendo has gotten the better end of the deal so far as the first game rare has released since MS purchased them was for a nintendo system.

and now that the only franchise that is mainstrream has possible been pushed back to the next xbox system means that there might not be any really AAA titles coming rare on the xbox

just my thoughts on this

[Reaver]

Well, it really doesn't bother me much either way. Perfect Dark was a distant second to Goldeneye in my eyes, so a sequel to it isn't needed all that fast for me. Kameo, though, is looking fantastic, and I'm hoping Grabbed By The Gholies will be a lot of fun, so if they want to focus on those, and then work on PD2 when they're done, it's fine with me.

As for how this affected Nintendo.... Eh, I think MS got a lot of great press out of it, and I think that eventhough Rare wasn't happy with Ninty, it still pulls some higher profile titles from their lineup, and that can't be good any way you look at it. But Ninty is surviving and will continue to do so, so in the end I think it'll all wash out.

[Ruined]

The fruits of Microsoft buying Rare were twofold. First, they have some kickass games in the pipeline, which will bear fruit in 2004. Second, the announcement of the acquistion of Rare was one of the major contributing factors that shot XBOX ahead of Gamecube in Europe. Microsoft got a great deal, and Nintendo lost a great dev studio - but if they needed the money, they needed the money.

[Engineer_J]

Well the way I feel about it is with mixed emotions. From a mindshare point of view, Nintendo lost out, from a business perspective Nintendo robbed MS blind.

From mindshare, people thought Nintendo was losing it by selling Rare, but if Rare was truly getting tired of Nintendo then all Nintendo could do is sell out. Also Nintendo lost out on the "potential" of a few good games down the line, Kameo, PD2, Banjo, etc. I think some of that mindshare is starting to turn Nintendo's way since Rare has still not released any games and the game they have shown were judged at E3 as very lackluster. Will I still buy them on the X-Box? Yes, I'm a rareware fan, will they produce good sales? I doubt it.

From Business, you can say Nintendo needed the money, but obviously they didn't. They have some 6 billion dollars in cash reserve so they are hurtin. From their standpoint they are making more profit then MS on the game side and Sony as a whole company. The selling of Rare was just that business. Rare is extremely late on every game and gave even the slow Nintendo a worse name on release dates just like they are now doing to MS. Rare has yet to make any serious sales or money on any game since Donkey Kong? Not sure, but I think that was the last sucessful game (sales of at least 500,000). Share of revenue from Rare towards Nintendo was less then 2% I believe in 2001, 2002. Also many people say Rare is not the same company, many left for Free Radical (still getting their games) and of course Zoomani (sp?) is still a Gamecube exclusive developer (if they ever release their "secret" project) and the founder is Martin Hollis (creator/lead Goldeneye, Perfect Dark). The real question is if Nintendo got their money's worth. Reportly they have spent that money on Retro / Silcon Knights (2 AAA games) and helping getting 3rd party from EA/Capcom/Namco and funding Geist. Sounds like a lot more games then MS is getting from Rare so far.

[Lastblade]

Until I see some great games released on the Xbox, Nintendo got the best end of this deal. At the end of the day, Videogames and companies are still businesses.

[Moonraker]

Microsfot released a press release about it's new direction today... They will be taking the company in a new direction, beginning with RARE.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3120794.stm

Digest from cube-europe:

Microsoft have been preparing 10 child-oriented games, including the first game by Rare, Grabbed by the Ghoulies. "The Xbox started off as a mature console," said Ed Fries, Vice President of Xbox game content, "that is starting to change. We are shifting away from the hardcore player and getting a broader line of content."

[spot778]

Anyone else amused at how ...

Microsoft is going "Kiddie"
Nintendo is going "Adult"

Considering it's all about perception and I just can't help but snicker and I own both

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by spot778

Anyone else amused at how ...

Microsoft is going "Kiddie"
Nintendo is going "Adult"

Considering it's all about perception and I just can't help but snicker and I own both

Well, in all fairness, it does make sense. Microsoft went for hardcore/adult first because their favored business model is more oriented towards them: online gaming requiring routers, yearly online fees, pay-per-content downloads, stuff that requires credit cards kids don't have, etc... They are now trying to expand to the younger market after capturing the adult market.

Nintendo, on the other hand, went for the childrens market first because simply, that is their mainstay. Now they are also trying to expand their audience.