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Rare loses more employees
- Thread starter Operations
- Start date
Didn't Nintendo buy Retro for the nice sum of 1 million dollars?
Hm, let's see here.
Sell Rare: +175 million
Buy Retro: - 1 million
Tough decision I suppose.
The Rare of today is nothing compared to last generation. Or even two generations ago.
On SNES, Rare had the DKC series as a blockbuster.
On N64, Rare had Goldeneye as one of the best selling games, in addition to DK64/DKR/PD.
On GCN, Rare had a mediocre Zelda-clone which sold okay, but probably no where near the amount of money which they spent several years making.
On Xbox, Rare developed GbtG, which I don't think needs explaining.
Really, how is this a good deal for Microsoft? I can understand if Conker sells millions, but I just don't see that happening.
Hm, let's see here.
Sell Rare: +175 million
Buy Retro: - 1 million
Tough decision I suppose.
The Rare of today is nothing compared to last generation. Or even two generations ago.
On SNES, Rare had the DKC series as a blockbuster.
On N64, Rare had Goldeneye as one of the best selling games, in addition to DK64/DKR/PD.
On GCN, Rare had a mediocre Zelda-clone which sold okay, but probably no where near the amount of money which they spent several years making.
On Xbox, Rare developed GbtG, which I don't think needs explaining.
Really, how is this a good deal for Microsoft? I can understand if Conker sells millions, but I just don't see that happening.
MassiveAttack
Banned
Hero said:
It's not. As I've said before, it's the primary reason Ed Fries left MS. Because whether you are MS or not, $375M is $375M - a shitload of cash than demands some kind of ROI in the near term.
I remember Ken Lobb being asked about this. His answer was something along the lines of "We didn't buy them for what they can do now, but what they can do several years down the road."
Must have some big crystal balls...
Or just big balls.
Rare output some of my favorite games in the early and mid-life eras of the N64.
But, barring one or two exceptions, their late-N64, GCN, and Xbox stuff were all duds.
Rare shifting to Xbox SHOULD have sold me an Xbox. But with their most recent games in mind, I held off.
Now, if Rare somehow turns around between this gen and next, I may get a Xenon for them. But I want them back to capacity from the first half of the N64's life. At least.
Rare output some of my favorite games in the early and mid-life eras of the N64.
But, barring one or two exceptions, their late-N64, GCN, and Xbox stuff were all duds.
Rare shifting to Xbox SHOULD have sold me an Xbox. But with their most recent games in mind, I held off.
Now, if Rare somehow turns around between this gen and next, I may get a Xenon for them. But I want them back to capacity from the first half of the N64's life. At least.
It's talent that makes good games not money. Employees leaving Rare isn't just a small problem no matter how many "supervisors" Microsoft sends to look over Rare.
It only cost 1 million to set up Retro... @__@
speaking of Retro I hope their first Revolution game isn't Metroid Prime 3.
Hero said:
It only cost 1 million to set up Retro... @__@
speaking of Retro I hope their first Revolution game isn't Metroid Prime 3.
Redbeard said:
Well if they already suck... now they suck more.
Deepthroat said:
You don't need to play EVERY game that comes out to see if it's good or not. Here are some reviews:
IGN: 7.0
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/455/455857p3.html
Gamespot: 6.5
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/grabbedbytheghoulies/index.html
Gamespy: 2 stars out of 5
http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/grabbed-by-the-ghoulies/6297p1.html
I guess it's not a really bad game but it's not more then average in any review.
Suikoguy said:Ironic, cause I own a Xbox, Cube and PS2
I just find it amusing, for all the money they spent, it has done virtually nothing to help their xbox yet.
Take a business 101 course, please. Rare will probably be around longer than you, and churn out more productive ideas than you, too, so $300 million isn't that big of a deal.
Lisa Lashes said:
Yup, sure thing. Instead of Nintendo's annual second party output of 4 games, now it's at 2. Retro sure keeps 'em coming! I hear in Metroid 3: Online Maybe, they'll add LAN support!! And the N-bots didn't think it'd get better than mulitplayer support!
*whew*
Bluemercury
Member
dorio said:
the question is would you play these if they were still at Nintendo field???
MetaKnight
Banned
RARE will be the savior of the XBOX.
The Promised One
Banned
So far, Rare has announced 0 titles for the XB that I'm interested in. And no, I don't care about Conker (Conker is a 13 yeard olds dick joke, with a bunch of spoofs thrown in).
Frankly, I think MS pulled a Munsen on this one.
Frankly, I think MS pulled a Munsen on this one.
Gchaime said:
Speak with him, the last time he answered^^
denis@siliconknights.com
He posted the addy somewhen on the IGN Boards
(Kill me Denis oO^^)
Bluemercury
Member
Shiggy said:
Care to elaborate?
human5892 said:
They did try your idea...
To name the ones i can find...
Kung Fu Chaos
Oddworld
Blinx
Voodoo Vince
Azurik
Fusion Frenzy
Whacked
Sneakers
And thats not including Tork, Psychonaughts which didnt (so far) even make it out the door, and Malice, which eventually did...eventually.
They span a few genres but they are all aiming at that light-hearted action crowd, the exact same one rare is aiming at now. Some were better than others (I still play Kung Fu Chaos when i have people round), none of them turned out exactly right, and only Blinx got a sequel.
krypt0nian
Banned
Goes to show that when you buy a DEV you don't buy the talent.
And whether or not RARE was worth it for its IP's is debateble.
And whether or not RARE was worth it for its IP's is debateble.
Actually, MS's purchase of Rare was a good thing for most Nintendo gamers... we are getting more Rare GBA games per year than we did while they were partnered with Nintendo.
Speaking of that... wasn't there some sort of press release or announcement by MS that Rare's handheld division would be making games for the PocketPC platform? I thought I heard that BK and Sabrewulf were scheduled to be ported.
Speaking of that... wasn't there some sort of press release or announcement by MS that Rare's handheld division would be making games for the PocketPC platform? I thought I heard that BK and Sabrewulf were scheduled to be ported.
disabledHeliocentric
Member
I wish Rare was back with Nintendo. I have an xbox but I'd rather play a Rare game on the cube. Sure, Nintendo has Retro but keeping Rare would have helped them at some point in the long run and Nintendo still hasn't found a developer to totally fill Rare's shoes(imo Retro is a different beast).
I'm really looking forward to Kameo.
Nintendo could use some of that action right now, imo.
I'm really looking forward to Kameo.
Nintendo could use some of that action right now, imo.
LuckyBrand
Banned
who cares
if you dont like rare games, dont buy them..
enough said , no?
if you dont like rare games, dont buy them..
enough said , no?
Bluemercury
Member
dorio said:
Protect the hive.....
D
Deleted member 284
Unconfirmed Member
Geezus, outside of the launch title of Oddworld, look at the list of sales stinkers. In retrospect, whatever MS invested in these companies still seems downright genius compared with short and mid term investment with Rare.Ghost said:
={<SMOKE>}=
Member
+1000 for the kingpin reference.
Alcibiades
Member
I don't understand with the jumping of XBots on the 4 GBA releases (which were pretty much completed before/around Sept. 02 anyway, the problem was a publisher) as counting towards the "5 games in two years".
It was obvious there was a reference to XBox games, since Conker and Kameo were not targeted at 2005 at the time, but rather 2003 releases, so if Ed Fries was counting GBA games, he would have said 10 releases or something...
http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=3460
It says DEVELOP five titles in the next two years (not releasing already made games on GBA), and it only mentions XBox in the whole release...
It was obvious there was a reference to XBox games, since Conker and Kameo were not targeted at 2005 at the time, but rather 2003 releases, so if Ed Fries was counting GBA games, he would have said 10 releases or something...
http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=3460
It says DEVELOP five titles in the next two years (not releasing already made games on GBA), and it only mentions XBox in the whole release...
MightyHedgehog
Member
Mejilan said:
Well, if you look at their history in video games (over 20 years), they release lots of crap, average, and fucking fantastic titles....just like ANY developer. Look at the NES for the best example of this. Rare is still going to make great games, IMO. Just not all of them will be considered so.
Alcibiades
Member
actually, it's Ghoulies + Kameo + Conker + hinted Racer (formerly Donkey Kong Racing) + hinted RPG (on raretopia.com), so there is your 5 games in development (leaving out PDO for the moment), my guess is that was their target, but something happened and now Microsoft has 24 of their own people calling the shots there, they must have wanted to streamline the operation...
Mike Works
Member
I'd just like to point out, because it often gets repeated in threads like these, that Microsoft did not shell out $175 million or however much and got Conker, Ghoulies, Perfect Dark, Kameo, etc in return. This may seem like a "duh" point, but that amount is how much Microsoft paid for the company upfront. Running Rare isn't free. I'm not sure if there's any way to get the amount it's cost Microsoft to provide Rare with the needed resources, marketing, and so forth, but make sure to take into account that it's cost Microsoft a lot more than the upfront fee they payed Nintendo/Stampers/whoever for Rare.
Alcibiades
Member
Ghost said:
this interview specifically states that Ken Lobb "feels good" about their stated commitment to 5 XBox titles in 2 years, it's not ambigous at all about what platform:
http://www.raretopia.com/features/anaudiencewithkenlobb/
Rare is obviously a very valuable company (especially with strong brands like Killer Instinct and Banjo-Kazooie), it's just that they definitely didn't meet expections for their first two years with Microsoft...
Oh i agree with that (even with GBA games they didnt meet their target) but it hasnt just been down to Rare being slow, its been down to MS wanting games that were catered to their needs, not just ports of partially developed GC games (DKR canned, Donkey Kong Party game canned, Kameo re-worked). I assume this decision was taken after the initial announcment.
For Conker, you may, may be playing that in early 2005. With Rare, any release date is uncertain, no matter how many assurances. For Killer Instinct and PD0, it may be years before you're playing those games. And people say Nintendo fans have game droughts. Dorio's drought, that's almost on a Working Designs scale.dorio said:
As for Rare, I'm just not into them like I was. If they release a great game, then great, I'll play it. But they've delayed their games so many times in order to release mediocre/average efforts lately (lately being more than a few years becuase of Rare's slow production) that I no longer think of Rare's games as automatically being quality like I used to. I think it started with DK64 and has been reenforced for almost all of their games since then. Their recent GBA efforts have saved them (as far as quality), not anything they've done for the GC/XBox.
Chrono said:
An excerpt from a rumor from remedy47 on Gamefaqs:
I found this out on videogameuniverse.com, anyway they said that Jeff Spangenberg was interested in reviving some other projects for the Gamecube after Echoes is released and that if there was a Metroid Prime 3 game to be made, Retro wouldnt be handling the sequel.
Thats not good, Metroid Prime was one of the best games on the GCN and I am sure that Echoes will carry on the traditional as well. Anyway he says the company wants to move onto bigger things other than just relying on one franchise to support their funds. But since Prime was a smashing success in the United States, and Echoes seems to be wildly popular alread, they say that they have attracted enough funds to support or possibly revive other projects such as Raven Blade, World Destruction Tour, Thunder Rally, NFL Retro Football, and a new action game called Gensu.
also confirmed by both Retro and Nintendo is that Nintendo will most likely continue to support Retro Studios as their 2nd party housed developer, however they will try to persuade them to do a Metroid Prime 3.
This is an unquoted thing Jeffy said "The Metroid franchise has been wildly popular in the United States and we as a company are very glad to help Nintendo revive this classic franchise to the fullest of our abilities, however, two's enough for us anyway. We will not however totally rule out the possibility of doing a Metroid Prime 3, we just have other projects in mind"
Raven Blade? (froth if true)
Alcibiades
Member
Retro may be a 2nd party in name, but technically, they are a 1st party developer since Nintendo owns 100% and from what I'd gather, have complete jurisdiction over what happens are Retro...