The Viva piñata games are two of my absolute favorite titles on the 360. I thought they were genius and spent several dozen hours with each of them. And Banjo was pretty solid, though I'm not much of a "builder" so it wasn't really totally "me." (I don't sit and make maps or LBP levels or cars or anything like that. Not my forte.) But it was a quality game.

And I still think avatars are completely under-rated.

 wow... at least the made some money I guess... IMO is very sad to see a dev of this quality making wiisports/kinect sports kind of games... I guess the good times are gone for them.

Microsoft

Let's not lose all hope at once though. Financially, they are currently living through a "good time", and I can't wait to see things like Perfect Dark with the next Xbox. As long as they own the IP, it's possible. :)

I'm more sickened by Double Fine at the moment as opposed to Rare. But I'm guessing that article is for another day.

Really, i always thought they were just better versions of Miis

Microsoft did not kill rare. Rare's games fit better with Nintendo is the problem. If Banjo Nuts & Bolts, Kameo, Viva Pinata were on the Wii they probably would have done better simply because Nintendo does better with Cartoony type games. Rare can't adapt to making games that fit the 360 nicely which would be nobody's fault but there own

Even though MS bought out the company, it was the stamper brothers who sold their 51% shares to MS in the first place. If they sold them to Nintendo then maybe they would've still been same Rare (but now most of the orignal people who were part of rare are now gone)

Recommend everyone READ THE ACTUAL ARTICLE.

That was fantastically insightful. Makes me feel better about some of the comments I've made about this subject over the years as well. There's no villain here. Just a relationship that ended when someone started losing their looks and a new beau came along and tried to salvage what was left of a broken heart.

Great ... I just turned this into a romantic dramedy ...

While that is partly true, you will find out that it's actually more complex than that if you read the article (if you have 15 minutes to spare, that is.....).

Microsofts management had a large role in this.