That was what I was going to say. They need to release Rare, or at least let them make good games. It would be sweet if Nintendo bought back Rare though.

I would rather have good games than Avatars, so I can see how people would be disappointed with Rare this gen. I am too, seeing as they made great games like the DKC trilogy, and have been reduced to working on the things you listed.

As funny as it is I think I read somewhere when MS first purchased Rare (or a little while after) that MS wanted to do Donkey Kong but wasnt allowed because it was Nintendo's property by technicality. I think Rare thought they owned more then they actually do which is kind of stupid. But MS knows what they are doing. Of all three MS has made the far biggest profit. MS is somehow growing, its actually quite remarkable. Kinect by all reports is making them huge amounts of money.

Ms knows what they are doing. They run a multi billion dollar business. They got rare for a reason. If you cant see it that is fine. I am happy with the purchase as I am happy with NXE, Viva Pinata, Kinect Sports and the Banjo Kazooie series. Dsister is the biggest Rare fan on this site and he seems pretty happy with how they are doing. I dont think many people would really have a problem with how Rare is doing things. 

Rare has got a lot responsibility down at MS land, they are showing why they have this. Not many companies can say they have a company like Rare that will do so much. They are officially part of MS now, that is one thing MS can put their hat on. Kudos to them, Kinect software is also quite impressive as well, that thing is selling millions and I doubt it will slow that much after christmas. They are onto a good thing imo.

Bought back? Sorry? I dont think Nintendo has ever owned Rareware. The closest they were was 2nd party I thought

I been saying this for years now and frankly Im tired !!!

Its sad that 2011 is the year I get my ps3 gaming on while my 360 is gonna collect dust(till Gears3)

way to go MS!!

My thoughts:

1. MS spent HALF A BILLION DOLLARS on marketing kinect. I think it's clear what direction they are pushing the 360 in. I guess the next console will start off hardcore again.

2. MS spent GAZZILLIONS on acquiring Rare from Nintendo. What a waste of money that was. Maybe they don't want to go through that again.

All in all, I don't think they really need to spend money to acquire a studio. They have their trump cards in Kinect, Live, and the Xbox brand which has become synonomous with 'mature' style games.

They will probably just keep doing exclusivity deals here and there.

Costs too much money to pay annual salaries for a number of large, talented development houses.  MS does better to secure 3rd party exclusives that they help fund and advertise to build up the initial lineups for new console generations first few years.

Seriously, look at how many somewhat talented dev houses got bought by EA, Activision, etc and ended up being closed after a couple of games didn't sell what they expected.  Now they don't exist anymore because they were too expensive to pay for staffing.  Even Sony knows that to some extent (never bought Insomniac).

Time for gamers to start seeing the gaming business world AS IT IS instead of how they think it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment#Software_development_studios

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Game_Studios#Software_Development_Studios

Microsoft have 9 first party studios, Sony have 15. You swear the way some people acted Sony had like 5 times as many

I dont get it why people like to hate Microsoft decision to promote Kinect .Thus they have never said that they will abandoned XBOX`s hardcore crowd.  

Bioware would have been a really good purcha