@johnlucas
Basically the situation is this. First we had a rumor that Goldeneye was being ported to Xbox live arcade. Then we had a later rumor that Nintendo was in some fashion blocking it. Now if the first rumor is authentic then the second rumor must be false otherwise the rumor of the development would never have gone forward, because Nintendo could have blocked it. Now if the first rumor is false then the second rumor is an obvious lie, because you can't block something that was not happening in the first place.
I see two realistic scenarios. The first being that Microsoft has the rights to release the game on their arcade, and they have paid the licensing fees. In response an avid Nintendo fan has decided to spread a false rumor in response. Perhaps a rabid fan who might be upset that Microsoft might end up having a game they desperately want on their virtual console.
The second scenario is that the first rumor was bogus perhaps generated by a 360 fanatic, and that the counter rumor was generated by a Wii fanatic as a rebuttal. How often have we seen these rumors over the past year. Someone cooks up a rumor and then someone cooks up a rumor to offset their rumor.
Basically if the first rumor is authentic it would be hard to imagine that Microsoft went ahead with development without dotting all their I's and crossing all of their T's especially when they would have to pay a licensing fee. Thus how would they get themselves into a position to be blocked.
I brought this up in another thread, but the timing here is very interesting. None of us know the stipulations of the contract under which Microsoft purchased Rare. I suppose you could find out given that the records are probably public. With enough time, money, and skill. You could most likely get a definitive answer to your question as to what was agreed upon.
That said if the agreement was that Microsoft had a waiting period before they could re-release these games ten years would be a very round number. One that both parties at the time could have probably agreed to. At the time Nintendo would have been happy with the fact that they wouldn't be on the Xbox, and at the time the virtual console probably wouldn't have been a twinkle in their eye. Microsoft would be happy to at the very least eventually get access to full games with their purchase of Rare.
Perhaps in the end Nintendo is going to have a bad case of sellers remorse who knows, but given what Microsoft paid for Rare one would think they would have found a way to rest total control over games that would still be of fantastic quality down the line.
Thats where I am leaning in this the contract gave Nintendo a ten year grace period, and it is running out. That explains the initial rumor or at the very least how it could be plausible. Otherwise Microsoft would have released a number of 64 Rare titles earlier, and it explains in part why the Wii hasn't gotten them at this point. I just find it very hard that the rights to these are in some permanent quasi limbo. I think its far more rational that they are in transit. Ten years of transit, but transit none the less.
I think the games gracing both consoles is highly unlikely. I know some people desperately want that, but to be frank. Microsoft isn't going to let Nintendo eat the fruits of their labor, or their hard spent money, and Nintendo probably isn't going to make the concessions to get them.
