In My Opinion Retro seems like they make great games but I never got into Metroid Prime 1,2, or 3. Donkey Kong Country Returns may be the 1st Retro game that I enjoy... while I loved Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. They both make or in Rares case made good games but for my personal game tastes Rare wins by far right now. I hope that Retro can make good games for me in the future though as D.K.C.R looks good right now.

I think the OP is forgetting a few things like Rare already being a development company before they became a second party studio to Nintendo. Rare was already developing games for the Commodore 64 and other platforms. This means that Rare was an established studio. Retro is not. This is why Nintendo is letting Rare work on different properties and this helps the studio grow in experience and talent. Nintendo is a company that tends to develop games in many different types of genres. This is their plan for Retro. We've know that Monolith was given the green light to develop Disaster: Day of Crisis. An action game from a company that specializes in developing RPGs. Camelot is another company that works with Nintendo that specializes in RPGs but was given the Green light to make Mario Tennis and Mario Golf for the N64 and the Game Boy Color, The games became successful and led to installments on the Gamecube and the                    Game Boy Advance.

Nintendo likes to have studios that can develop games in many genres and this is their goal for Retro. To compare Retro to Rare is to do a disservice to both studios. Rare has changed and they are not the studio that developed for the N64. That's their past glory and not many studios can live up to that.

Yah I know Rayman is a downloadable title but if that could be made by 8 people and look that good a full sized Rayman shouldn't take a team much bigger then about 30-40. I'm comparing it to DKC:R but yah DKC:R does look alot better but its been in the works for two years. Plus I remember Sonic Heroes for the GameCube took 13 months to develope. 2 years sounds understandable for a big PS3/360 game but for a Wii game that is alittle long.

As for 75 employees I could have sworn I read in Gamasutra awhile back that Retro was nearing 150 or so. Also Retro is hiring even right now there was an ad only weeks ago I read.

Are you sure their that small? If they are indeed that small then Nintendo should definatly be expanding them. Being Nintendo's biggest western studio they should definatly make it capable of bringing a game each year.

Then again as someone pointed out Retro may have been working on another game alongside Country. That would explain why it took so long and it also means that they could have a new title to show at next E3. But I'm satisfied with Donkey Kong for now.

Rare was great ... in its day.

Today, Rare was consigned to making Wii-like games for Kinect while Retro and Activision bring back some of its former glorious titles.

Mike from Morgantown

Smelly monkey make Rare big. Monkey have good games people like.  Rare made games for 64 that good. many franchises. Rare have fat bear and ugly bird. Bear make sales go boom for 64. Much better than goolies or pyscho squirell. Dark lady also help 64. Super spy also was much good. Rare much better company than Retro. Stupid Bear not in much games anymore. Blame lazy developers. Pinata game last hope though for Rare now. Sad to see smelly monkey now based on Rare work. Would be much better if Rare made. Hope smelly monkey game original.