Rare

antime

Extra Hard Mid Boss
The rumours have been flying for some time, and now several sources say the deal has been closed: Rare is getting bought by Microsoft in a deal worth over £250 million. Nintendo are also expected to sell their share.

Here's The Register's take on it, and here is another story, this time from Rewired Mind.
 
The Regester is the National Enquirer of the Internet.

doubt all they say. like the backdoor virus they say MS put in with an update.
 
Originally posted by Link Hylia@Sep. 10 2002, 8:24 pm

The Register is the National Enquirer of the Internet.

Is that a bad thing? :
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They can't even seem to agree on who's selling, but it does sound pretty certain that something big is going on. A lot of the reporting sounds fishy to me though, such as:

As Rare own the majority share, Nintendo would be obliged to sell their property.

Maybe it works differently in the UK, but last time I checked a controlling interest in a corporation doesn't give one the privilege to compel other holders to sell (as their stock is their property, not the corporation's). Can you imagine the potential for abuse that this would have?

Anyway, at this point I think the only reason Nintendo would sell their share in Rare is if they intended to use the money to hire away some of the dev talent (certainly *someone* working there would rather work for Nintendo than MS) and otherwise invest in other companies. However, it's not clear at all that Nintendo wants to let go of Rare, so it will be interesting either way to see what develops.
 
Rare has allegedly been losing many of its senior staff, and not only the Timesplitters people. At worst, the potential buyer would end up with the name and little else, like when US Gold bought Ultimate.

Anyway, from a business point of view Rare doesn't have many reasons to stay single-format, especially if they have lost their favoured developer status with Nintendo.
 
Does this mean there won't be any more classic rare platformers such as conker, donkeykong, and who can forget their gameboy games?
 
since Nintendo still owns quite a large share, RARE can and will still produce games for Nintendo Consoles. MS would be able to sell the idea to RARE, and if they bought it, they could and probably would produce Xbox games. Nintendo won't sell their shares (their stake of the company) unless they could get a major price for them. RARE has made many a game, that Nintendo made lots of money on, the DK franchise for one thing. think Nintendo will let that get away from them?
 
I heard that the Nintendo/Rare relationship has been somewhat dampened since the release of Conker, apparently some people at Nintendo were offended by the humour and bad language in the game. Personally I think it's brilliant, and was a bold move on the part of Rare. The turd monster and the song he sings are especially hilarious.

If the above is true then it's little wonder that Nintendo have a rep as a kiddie company.
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I dunno, for some reason turd humour doesn't strike me as something the Japanese would be big on. Conker is quite a western sort of a game humour wise, I think.

Still cool though
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RARE has made many a game, that Nintendo made lots of money on, the DK franchise for one thing.

DK is Nintendo's. Not to say that Rare was doing a bad job with it, but Donkey Kong is as much a part of Nintendo as Pac-Man is a part of Namco, if not more so.
 
Originally posted by antime+Sep. 11 2002, 4:12 pm--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(antime @ Sep. 11 2002, 4:12 pm)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Myname@Sep. 11 2002, 3:24 pm

I dunno, for some reason turd humour doesn't strike me as something the Japanese would be big on.

You mean you've never played Toilet Kids?[/b][/quote]

The Japanese seem to have a bizarre fascination with poo judging by some of the, errr... special interest film clips I've seen.
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Originally posted by segasonic@Sep. 11 2002, 5:16 pm

The Japanese seem to have a bizarre fascination with poo judging by some of the, errr... special interest film clips I've seen.
tongue.gif

You got a URL
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?

I was just thinking of how humorous Japanese games often don't translate too well here (I love Goemon, but I think it has to fit into that category), I'm just guessing that it maybe would be the case going the other way with Rare being a British developer.

Of course, poo is a worldwide phenomenon. Sorry if I offended any poo lovers out there.
 
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