Actually Nintendo had the first option to buy out the Stamper Bros.  controlling stake in Rare. They declined to.

Man, what was RARE thinking with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts? Dumbest decision in gaming history? No, but close!

Microsoft didn't kill Rare, Rare killed Rare with their awful games the past 10 years.

There is so much negative emotion in this post, and for the life of me I can't figure out where it's coming from or why it's there.

OP: As a big fan of Rare's N64 games, for me it's sad to see what they have become today. When did MS buy them? IIRC Rare didn't have too many games in the last generation (or at least, none on-par with their outings on the N64 and SNES), so it may potentially have to do with Nintendo as well, depending on when Rare was purchased

He's very judemental, and most fucked up when Microsoft is put in bad position.

Star Fox Adventures was their only Gamecube era game and that started as an N64 title.

Let's keep it real here, shall we?

Microsoft killed ENSEMBLE......Messed up ACES.....Destroyed FASA, Obliterated DIGITAL ANVIL....

Facilitated RARE's demise,

and BUNGIE got sick of Microsoft's incompetence, got out of their deal, and jumped on the first thing smokin to distance themselves from Microsoft's management stupidity.

Microsoft is the worst dev studio manager of possibly alltime.
Period.

Isn't this old news now? The post Sal.Paradise made pretty much covers where things went wrong for Rare.

Microsoft weren't the type of partner they were used to or needed in terms of creativity. When they teamed with Nintendo, they're game development philosophies seemed to complement each other. Microsoft were fairly inexperienced in the console space and were geared to a different audience than Rare. Rather than a creative partnership it was a corporate one that's lead to Rare being in a very different position today.

For anyone that's a fan of the old Rare games, it's a tragedy. For Microsoft, they're probably fairly satisfied with their current output, but it's a very different type of output from the Rare of old.

Very good points all around may I add too that Nintendo is such a great creative influence in the studios they hire like Retro Studios I bet they are always supporting them are watching over.

This guy just sounds bitter. Also never heart of him before David Wise is the best Rare composer ever.

i hope you realized that there closed like 100 other studios as well which were good in the 80s or 90s in the last decade without microsoft. it is the entertainment branch, just because a company is good for a decade doesn't automatically mean that they will be good one decade later if they don't get fucked up by microsoft. and if they aren't profitable for some time, maybe it just doesn't make sense to let them stay alive.

just last year, we saw game republic, bizzare, black rock and whatever shutting down. and they all made some great games. did you see what thq alone did last year with some studios? or what happened with the whole company?  or recently zipper interactive?

last ten years were a hard time for gaming studios. most needed help not to die, many died without help and some got bought and got shut down just to get the licences or whatever. but without a purchase and shut down they wouldn't be there anymore neither.

@sal.paradise

thx for your post! at least someone who had some informations why it maybe doesn't work with rare and microsoft as good as it worked before with nintendo and rare