RARE without Nintendo is not what it was to be....

[theRepublic]

celine said:

What Peter Moore think about Rare:

In the interest of providing a little background, you'll recall that Microsoft acquired Rare (including the 49 percent of shares owned by Nintendo) back in 2002, for a whopping $377 million. It seemed like a coup at the time, as Rare was coming off a number of hits for the Nintendo 64, including Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye, and Perfect Dark. But as Moore tells it, they're prior success never quite translated over to Microsoft's hardware:

"I thought ultimately [Viva Pinata] would be very successful -- and you know, Microsoft, we'd had a tough time getting Rare back -- Perfect Dark Zero was a launch title and didn't do as well as Perfect Dark... but we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had past Rare by -- it's a strong statement but what they were good at, new consumers didn't care about anymore, and it was tough because they were trying very hard -- [original Rare founders] Chris and Tim Stamper were still there -- to try and recreate the glory years of Rare, which is the reason Microsoft paid a lot of money for them and I spent a lot of time getting on a train to Twycross to meet them. Great people. But their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market."

Some harsh words, but when you consider Rare's output for the Xbox and Xbox 360, including already long-forgotten titles like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Kameo: Elements of Power, it's hard to argue that Moore's account isn't accurate.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169979

Doesn't Nintendo give help and direction to its second parties?

It could be that without that help, Rare was just a mediocre developer.