Nope.

No, but they have improved

The meta for killer instinct is pretty average, so let's not go overboard

I am one of them for sure buddy.

eh not really, 1 game is not enough to erase a bunch of crappy ones, 2 and we'll see a pattern.  We'll see when Strider releases, that looks good.

Unless its Knack.

People keep bringing up Silent Hill Homecoming which was poor, but not absolutely awful.  That's not their only game though. 

This is a company that gave us Front Mission Evolved, my opinion of the worst game this gen, Battleship, Green Lantern Rise of the Manhunters,  and G.I. Joe Rise of the Cobra.

They should be based on all the crap they make, not just a single game that was somewhat decent.

First of all, you have no idea what you're talking about. Many people enjoyed the series. Not just on consoles, but on arcade.

The N64 version of KI2 did poorly because of the platform. The N64 was not popular platform for arcade fighters. Arcade fighting fans were playing PS1. Look at Mortal Kombat, it did much better on PS1 than N64.

KI is indeed aimed at some people in this thread and the reason you hear so much crying about KI is because long time fans are upset its only on Xbox.

They earned some respect from me, though in general I don't think much has changed. If they released KI complete and the game got the mid-high 80s it would have gotten things could be different.

Speak for yourself. Were you around back then, did you go to arcades and play the actual games, not just the watered down (though still decent) home ports? They were immensely popular. Yes, people did love 3D fighters like VF and Tekken, but you seem to be forgetting that this was during the same span of time when Capcom's own 2D sprite based fighters like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom were, quite frankly, WAY more popular than Tekken or Virtua Figher ever were. Killer Instinct was right there with those games, and Mortal Kombat 3/UItimate, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, etc.

I personally really loved the first two KI games, they were excellent for what they were, and very unique among a slew of Street Fighter clones from that 90s era. I had always hoped that Rare would make a KI3, but they never did, and then after they got bought by MS, and all the actual talent gradually left the company, I switched to fervently hoping that they NEVER tried to bring the franchise back, because I had a feeling it would be shit if they did. And from all I've seen, at least in my personal opinion, I was right.

Lots of you have replied so intead of getting into individual debates I'll sum it up in one.

I've been gaming since the mid 80's so I was there back when KI first came out but I will admit I was never big into the arcade scene - more to do with funds as a kid than not wanting to.

So KI was a huge deal in the arcades, which is something I didn't experience first hand. I was aware of Virtua Fighter being considered a better game in the arcades over Tekken and was a much more tactical game.

But my main point was how KI lost popularity from SNES to N64.

Just look at the sales: 820k for KI Gold compared to 5.74m for Tekken 2 and 1.93m for Virtua Fighter 2.

If N64 wasn't the home of fighters then that just shows KI wasn't that big of a deal becasue if it was it would have helped popularise the genre on the console.