Rare had been on a slow decline after Conker's Bad Fur Day came out. Nintendo dropped them at the right time, Microsoft picked them up at the wrong time. Without Nintendo's iron fist guiding them, the studio just kind of... fell to pieces. Not really Microsoft's fault, certainly not Nintendo's. It just happens, sometimes, with studios where the creative input of a few people can be really that important (like all those guys who left Rare).

I remember back in the day when Rare games were where it was at, when that one company could justify - by itself - the owning of an entire platform. Those days were great. The people making games at Rare were great.

They really were.

Lol, they made those games? I had no idea.

They also made the freakin' avatars :P

God, stop, you are depressing me

This seems to be the culture for most studios except those owned or operating with Nintendo. While some of the studios are definitely more mercenary (thinking NDCube here), most seem to be doing "what they want" within certain obvious limitations (they're not doing whatever the hell they want, obviously), but their game-making process feels more generic, rather than Nintendo telling them to fill out a request.

I can only assume you mean "organic"

Yes, how silly of me.

Great article.

I never knew Activision was this close to buy Rare.

Also this article really made me realize (furthermore) how amazing Nintendo (or perhaps I should say Miyamoto) really is.

"The first point that I want to make is that I actually worked very closely with Rare on the original Donkey Kong Country. And apparently recently some rumor got out that I didn't really like that game? I just want to clarify that that's not the case, because I was very involved in that. And even emailing almost daily with Tim Stamper right up until the end."

http://wii.ign.com/articles/110/1100039p3.html

Banjo threeie or GTFO