While I do agree that Rare had excellent management that encouraged creativity and some of the industry's best talent, the truth is they were able to do what they did simply because they were around at the right time. Just think of how inexpensive game development was in the 1990's compared to now. No developer, not even Rare under the Nintendo partnership could make all those high quality games in such a short period of time nowadays. There's a reason why we only see one Retro Studios game every couple of years. There's a reason why Call of Duty gets switched around between developers after each release. Games take more time to make and they're more expensive.
Then there's the development environment. Rare used to have the testing department, where developers who weren't currently working on a game were sent to come up with conceptual ideas for their next game. This is where wonderful gems like Killer Instinct and Diddy Kong Racing came from. The testing department was shut down after Microsoft took over and Rare became the now-industry standard hire and fire company.
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