Soundwave said:
I think really in a way there was basically a "coup" inside of Nintendo where the Japanese development side took over and largely undid all the good things people like Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa did. I suspect some people at Nintendo in Japan on the development side were also jealous of Rareware and wanted them out of the picture. Couldn't have a Western studio being Nintendo's flagship studio. In 2000, Nintendo had good balance between Japanese and Western development, when Arakawa/Lincoln stepped down (or thereabouts). By 2003/04 everything about that would largely be wound down, it was doubly disastrous too because this is when Western developers became much more important. |
Nintendo, specifically Miyamoto, probably felt threatened by Rare however, I don't think Nintendo wouldn't have bought Rare. I mean it really could have gone either way but they did own a considerable amount of Rare but I heard that the way it went was, the talented individuals at Rare had left the company before Nintendo could buy them out. I don't know how true that is, but I'd imagine that's why they didn't have Rare as one of their flagship studios.
Nintendo has also had a really bad experience with European developers too for some reason. Argonaut and Rare immediately come to mind.







