| thetonestarr said: I've honestly been wondering the same thing. Retro is "supposed" to be the new Rare, but really just in that they work with Donkey Kong IPs. They don't release anywhere near as many titles as Rare did, and I really am amazed at the consistently high quality that Rare turned out, when they had such a rapid development cycle. No other developer has ever had that, including Rare themselves, since then. |
Rare also had a giant head start on the N64. During the development of Donkey Kong Country they allotted large sums of money to buy expensive Silicon Graphics workstations (SGI Indigo 2, Challenge L/XL) because they developed a new rendering technique they called ACM (Advanced Computer Modeling) that required intensive processing power. They were also one of the first studio's in the UK and Europe to invest so heavily in the expensive SGI workstations.
Rareware's prowess and skill with with the SGI machines impressed Nintendo greatly and was probably one of the reasons Nintendo chose Silicon Graphics (SGI) to develop the graphics processor for the Ultra 64. I think development of Goldeneye started on Silicon Graphics Onyx machines before the N64 was finalized.
