| rapsuperstar31 said: Nintendo selling Rare hurt, Rare was a huge N64 developer for them. It didn't launch with a Mario or Zelda game. Luigi's Mansion was a good game, but short and not a great launch game. Zelda was first shown off as an epic game, and when it was shown a few years later it was a cartoon game that made a lot of people furious. It was a fantastic game, but people didn't want to give it a chance because of the graphics. Mario Sunshine was the only flawed major Mario game and didn't have much variance in it's levels. I played Mario Sunshine a few years ago on the 3D collection, and actually enjoyed it a lot more than I did on the Gamecube. Now having the Resident Evil exclusive deal I thought should have brought in gamers. RE Remake and 4 were fantastic games that deserved more sales. 4 ended up coming to the PS2 later on. I personally bought the PS2 near launch and it was my first non Nintendo system. I bought it originally for the DVD player and to play the Square rpg's that I didn't play on the PS1 since I had the N64. I got the Gamecube a few years later for $99, and I ended up loving the Gamecube more than I did the PS2. There were so many fantastic games on the Gamecube. Tales of Symphonia is one of my favorite JRPG games ever, RE Remake and 4, Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe, Wave Race, Baten Kaitos, and so many more Nintendo made games were fantastic. |
Losing Rare hurt, but probably even more specifically losing James Bond really hurt.
GoldenEye 007 was a massive part of the reason the N64 managed to top 30 million sold, Yamauchi never should have listened to Rare and should have renewed the rights to the 007 license and had another team work on the IP if Rare didn't want to.
Also little known fact, Yamauchi was the one who purchased the rights for GoldenEye 007. It's been stated or implied that it was Rare that pushed for it, which wasn't true. Yamauchi bought the rights and then Rare was kinda nudged into being the developer as they were UK based.
Rare's staff was the one that talked Nintendo out of renewing the license in favor of Perfect Dark, had that game delayed multiple times, and then Rare was gone entirely. That went about as badly as possible for Nintendo, it's also a lesson that you can't let the inmates (devs) run the asylum. If the GoldenEye team wanted to work on Perfect Dark instead, fine, I would have just assigned another team at Rare or Retro or whatever to the Bond series. This is a business, not an after school "do what you feel like" club.
The GameCube basically had no Bond, Mario Sunshine wasn't there at launch and wasn't as impactful as Mario 64 (not even close), and Zelda was cel-shaded which seriously hurt it's marketability. And then Mario Kart came out far later in the GameCube's product cycle too versus Mario Kart 64. All were bad decisions. It's like giving the coach a team that has 4 star players on it, but all 4 of them are hurt and one of them can't even play period.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 12 December 2024
