Rare could've been Nintendo's Naughty Dog and Bungie

[Veknoid_Outcast]

Ultimate Play the Game/Rareware/Rare was making great games since 1983. It's hard to keep up that level of excellence for decades. Eventually the Stamper brothers had had enough. David Doak, Steve Ellis, and Graeme Norgate wanted to try something new with Free Radical. Martin Hollis left to help Nintendo with GameCube.

The talent was leaving and Nintendo was unprepared to keep pumping money into the studio for more expensive and less impressive titles.

In my opinion, Nintendo has a Bungie/Naughty Dog. It's Retro. Formed in 1998 from former Iguana staff (the dudes who made Turok), it replaced Rare as the western studio Nintendo trusted with its IPs.

Look at the timeline here:

2001: Halo: Combat Evolved, Jak and Daxter
2002: Metroid Prime
2003: Jak II
2004: Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Jak 3
2007: Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
2009: Uncharted 2, Halo 3: ODST
2010: Donkey Kong Country Returns, Halo: Reach
2011: Uncharted 3
2013: The Last of Us
2014: Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
2016: Uncharted 4
2017: ????