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Editorials   Regarding Rare Rumors.
- By Neal Gittens [Associate Editor]

I realize that I have been slow on my contributions to the site lately, and that is partly due to a new job, and partly due to various other time consuming activities, but I assure all my faithful readers that reviews are on the way for a few games, and other goodies will follow. That having been said, I now must vent about the most annoying recent rumors/alleged "reports": Rare getting bought by the dreaded Microsoft.

These kind of reports have been popping up at various times over the past several months. “Rare is going multi-platform”, “Rare isn’t leaving”, “Rare is now run by red-assed monkeys”. They’ve all proven completely unfounded up to this point, (though I wonder about the monkey thing if the rumors do prove true) but the speculation has picked up greatly in the past week or so, and I have begun to wonder what the repercussions would be for Nintendo and Nintendo fans should the Rare boys get stolen away by those MS fellas.

First and foremost, Nintendo loses a great developer. I realize this isn’t as huge a blow as it would have been in the N64 vs. PS1 days, but it’s still a big blow regardless. Rare isn’t carrying Nintendo on its back the way they did in the last generation of console wars, (Hell, all it IS carrying is ONE game: Starfox Adventures.) but the franchises it owns are some promising ones. Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, Conker. Those three are highly anticipated by many, many gamers, myself included. Conker’s next adventure is one of the three highest anticipated games on my list. (Zelda and Harvest Moon are the other two.) If these go to the ‘Box it hurts Nintendo, obviously. Perfect Dark Zero is one of the most anticipated games on ANY system. Banjo has been a solid platforming series, and would add another quality game to Nintendo’s library. (Not that it is lacking for good games, but you can never have TOO MANY great games.) As a whole, Rare remains one of the best developers on the planet, and replacing them would be a near impossibility. Retro is looking good on Metroid Prime, but they aren’t nearly as proven as Rare are. Sega’s contributions to the Cube have been very good, but hardly earth shattering. Capcom has provided the Resident Evil series, which is looking great, but have given little else in terms of major title support. If Nintendo hopes to replace Rare’s contributions, they really need to start getting some major third party games going to fill that void.

Now, if Rare does end up as a subsidiary of Microsoft, all isn’t lost. Nintendo’s strengths have always been their first party games, and those remain. The third party support is better, though not mind-boggling as of now. Rare won’t provide too many games to the Box, just because of their nature. Rare takes forever to make a game. Fact of life. Will MS be able to live with that? Who knows? They rushed Halo (which they also bought the developer out for) to get it out for launch, and basically stretched a really good game out into a half a good game and half garbage. To those that have played the “Library” level of Halo, has there EVER been a worse level in the history of video games? Honestly? Would MS be able to sit by while Rare delays a game repeatedly to get it right, or do they make Rare put it out before they want to? These are some of the questions that would follow a move of this sort.

Now, if it does happen, it just proves that Microsoft is playing a different game than that of Nintendo. Microsoft’s answer to every situation thus far in their short stint in the video game industry has been to throw money at it. They bought Halo’s developer, Bungie, so that they had their “crown jewel” for launch. They have paid money for “exclusives” on many (most) games. A few weeks earlier release, an extra level, an extra character, even exclusive games altogether. Ask Sega, who have lined their pockets with large sums of MS’s money in exchange for all sorts of exclusives. It’s a different philosophy from what Nintendo exhibits. Nintendo’s “major” buyout has been of Retro, a company whose ONLY project ever in the history of the world has been for Nintendo: Metroid Prime. Major move there, huh? Nintendo’s major exclusive deal has been with Capcom for the Resident Evil series, which likely cost a pretty penny, but was also described by the president of Capcom as putting the games on the system he wanted to see the series on. As a whole, it looks like another example of MS trying to buy their way into a power position in a market that others have created for them.

Now, I may be more disappointed in Rare’s actions than MS’s if this proves to be true. It would be a slap in the face to a proud company (Nintendo) that has MADE Rare what they are. Rare made a name for themselves on the SNES with the Donkey Kong Country series, which featured WHOSE characters? Exactly. Nintendo has been the main reason that Rare has become what they have become. For God’s sake, Nintendo BUILT Rare’s headquarters for them. Does that not say volumes about how close Nintendo holds Rare? I really just don’t understand Rare’s reasoning if they do jump ship, other than a huge chunk of cash right now. They leave for a smaller world market share, (Millions more Gamecubes sold worldwide than Xboxes.) on a system that they will have to learn from the ground up, (They’ve been learning the ins and outs of the Cube for years now.) and for a user base that won’t know them quite as well as their current one. (Rare may be a big name in the industry, but I defy you to find a single Nintendo fan who DOESN’T know who Rare is.)

Now, this has become yet another long-winded rant from your truly, but after hearing such things for the past week or so, it merited a rant to call its own. I truly love Rare for what it has done for Nintendo, and Rare should be grateful for what Nintendo has made them. To lose a valuable ally in the “console wars” would be a great loss, but merely a battle, not the war. This situation will play out in the next few weeks, or maybe it won’t, or maybe it will in a very new way which noone has heard of yet. Who knows? All we know is, the next few weeks and months could play out in many ways, and could dictate a great deal of how the tide will swing in the console wars.