Nintendo, EA, Capcom, Natsume, Taito, Square, Konami, Blizzard, Activision, Hudson, Disney, Lucasarts....

Not to mention Epic Megagames (now Epic) and iD Software.

To a lesser extent Crystal Dynamics and Silicon Knights and technically, Microsoft were a publisher back then too.

I see what you did now. What has Crystal Dynamics and Silicon Knights done... I have never heard of them

Square... really, half this board is sooo positive about Square, or what it is called now Square-Enix... 2 companies

Blizzard and Activision, these guys cant do it on their own so they joined together.

Lucas Arts is a funny one, did they do Lego Starwars? if not then Starwars force unleashed (i dont know if you would consider

KOTOR for this gen)

That is a brief look,

have heard of but dont know what (natsume, taito, konami, hudson, disney (apart from epic mickey) have done recently. And again playing by the rules this is from THIS generation, not last. Thus only some Kingdom hearts can be included, because most were on ps2 from memory.

No the OP said they have fallen, they clearly havent. They dont have Nintendo's IP's to work with so they have to start again which they have been doing.

Legendary games they used to make that they cant legally now

Donkey Kong

Golden Eye (of any time)

Game they wanted to change becasue they believed it has gotten stale

Banjo Kazooie.

AND STOP DOUBLE ENTERING

Kinect Sports is a big hitter for mine, Kinect is a big hitter for mine, NXE (changed the whole set-up) is something a big hitter would do.

Failing to see your argument.

@optoma1990 I want to say Squilliam got pwned, but knowing him, he just wanted you to name 10 developers from the Snes days for no real reason.......

But let me toss this out there:  If Rare announced that they were making new games for Cruis N USA, Blast Corps., Killer Instinct, Banjo Kazooie, Jet Force Gemeni, Perfect Dark, and Conker in 2011--how many of these titles would be megahits?  A few of them would, I would gladly admit.  A few of them would but some of these series just aren't what people are playing these days.  Cartoon platformers are on the decline, FPS's are a dime a dozen, fighting games aren't as popular, etc.Well, Rare wouldn't just make sequels to those games.  They'd make some new IP's, you say? 

Exactly.

While Rare certianly isn't dead, there is little question that thier current output hasn't reached (and may never reach) the outstanding highs that they reached during the SNES and N64 days. Though, those games were and are so legendary that it would probably be nearly impossible for any developer to be expected to reach that level again, despite the talent.

It's a bit unfortunate but that's how it goes in many cases.

A lot of the posts as well as OP are talking how Rare has become a failure and a shadow of its former self. I'm just saying that as long as people have jobs, and games are made which are successful, RARE isn't a failure.

Times have changed. The only reason why Rare stood out from the crowd back then is because they invested in to some really high end technology (Silicon Graphics workstation) and they had somewhat talented developers. Times have changed as no one really has this kind of a technical advantage these days.

They also serve a different role at microsoft than they did at nitnendo. If you think about it, Rare are still doing what they used to, the best it can be done in todays day and age.

Do Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, Too Human and Eternal Darkness ring any bells?

Crystal Dynamics is the studio responsible for all the recent Tomb Raider/Lara Croft (Legend, Anniverssary, Underworld, Guardian of Darkness) games and previously worked on Legacy of Kain titles and Pandemonium 2.

Silicon Knights did the first Legacy of Kain game (Blood Omen) on PS1. Last gen they did an Eternal Darkness game on Gamecube and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. This gen they've done Too Human (and were supposedly doing the sequels). They are apparently working on an X-men game and a game with Sega.

I'm suprised you haven't heard of the latter. Dennis Dyack (the president of SK) was always in the gaming news leading up to the release of Too Human.

Most of those are big publishing houses, not companies.

Effectively 80% of great developers probably still aren't even operational from those days. The remainder aren't anywhere near their former glory. There are very few exceptions.