Rare Ltd. Talks About Microsoft Mismanagement

Turkish

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Turkish on 09 November 2013

When MS bought rare, it was one of the saddest days of my life.

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Goatseye on 09 November 2013

Turkish said:
When MS bought rare, it was one of the saddest days of my life.

Why is that? MS had to reconstruct them from the bottom up because they jumped ship right after acquisition.

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IamAwsome on 09 November 2013

Goatseye said:

Chandler said:

Somini said:

It was a sad day in the early 2000s when Microsoft bought out childhood-memory-makers Rare Ltd.

Never forget. Never touch (console) Microsoft.

Why didn't Nintendo buy them?

Before the buyout, Nintendo owned 49% of Rare. The Stampers owned the rest. The Stamper bros. were ready to retire, and they wanted Rare to be wholly-owned. They went to Nintendo first, and their asking price was way too high, so Nintendo told them to find another buyer. Activision and MS both offered, and MS offered up the most money (much more than Rare was worth imho). Nintendo and the Stampers sold their shares to MS for that ridiculous price and the rest was history. There wasn't any bad blood or anything. The Stampers didn't actually leave Rare until 2008 or so.

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Goatseye on 09 November 2013

IamAwsome said:

Goatseye said:

Why didn't Nintendo buy them?

Before the buyout, Nintendo owned 49% of Rare. The Stampers owned the rest. The Stamper bros. were ready to retire, and they wanted Rare to be wholly-owned. They went to Nintendo first, and their asking price was way too high, so Nintendo told them to find another buyer. Activision and MS both offered, and MS offered up the most money (much more than Rare was worth imho). Nintendo and the Stampers sold their shares to MS for that ridiculous price and the rest was history. There wasn't any bad blood or anything. The Stampers didn't actually leave Rare until 2008 or so.

I know the story, but bunch of staff that worked on Nintendo published games had left before 2008.

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DonFerrari on 09 November 2013

And that is how you kill a dev.

duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

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prayformojo on 09 November 2013

RolStoppable said:

EricFabian said:

Goatseye said:

Why didn't Nintendo buy them?

because Microsoft did first, for $375 mil

No, Nintendo had certainly the option to buy Rare, it was just too high of a price for a developer that was already on the decline. Rare wanted to sell and Microsoft were the ones who were willing to pay.

Decline? They just released Perfect Dark not long before that lol. Nintendo didn't buy them because the price was just too high for them.

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osed125 on 09 November 2013

A lot of people don't take into consideration that Rare was in a bad shape before MS bought them. A few key developers left the company, and internally, they were apparently a mess.

Staying with Nintendo wouldn't have changed their situation, it was just MS that put the final nail in the coffin, even to the point where the founders (the Stamper brothers) left the company.

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osed125 on 09 November 2013

Veknoid_Outcast said:
Just looked up Tossel. Apparently he joined Rare at the tail end of Diddy Kong Racing and left after the completion of Kinect Sports. Just in case people are wondering.

I have no doubt Microsoft mismanagement helped contribute to the decline of Rare, but I think it's unfair to place the blame solely on the technology giant. I think it was a combination of several things, including mismanagement, the dissolution of the partnership with Nintendo, and the loss of creative talent after the acquisition by Microsoft.

Some of those developers left Rare before MS bought them. It is well known that Rare was extremely demanding with their employees, and some of them left because they were tired of the excessive work.

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