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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Alternate history: Microsoft never joins the console race

curl-6 on 30 October 2024
m0ney said:

How many billions Microsoft have lost in the console race?

The original Xbox lost $5-7 billion if I recall correctly.



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CaptainExplosion on 30 October 2024
curl-6 said:

By the time Rare was sold to MS, much of the talent behind games like Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, DKC, etc had already left the building.
Their last Nintendo game, Starfox Adventures, was already a mediocre showing, and from that point on their mojo never returned.

Nintendo could have bought Rare and tried to whip them into shape, but by that point maybe they were right not to.

Well for me that's an awful way of looking at it. That'd be like if Disney sold off Pixar just because The Good Dinosaur didn't do very good in theaters.

curl-6 said:
m0ney said:

How many billions Microsoft have lost in the console race?

The original Xbox lost $5-7 billion if I recall correctly.



curl-6 on 30 October 2024
CaptainExplosion said:
curl-6 said:

By the time Rare was sold to MS, much of the talent behind games like Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, DKC, etc had already left the building.
Their last Nintendo game, Starfox Adventures, was already a mediocre showing, and from that point on their mojo never returned.

Nintendo could have bought Rare and tried to whip them into shape, but by that point maybe they were right not to.

Well for me that's an awful way of looking at it. That'd be like if Disney sold off Pixar just because The Good Dinosaur didn't do very good in theaters.

Much of the key talent was already gone, there's a reason Rare haven't made a single great game since 2001. A company is only as good as they people who work there. 



SanAndreasX on 01 November 2024

Without the talent that made Rare games so successful during the SNES-N64 era, whoever bought them was basically paying $350M for a barn in the English countryside. World’s most expensive farmhouse.



G2ThaUNiT on 01 November 2024
curl-6 said:
CaptainExplosion said:

Well for me that's an awful way of looking at it. That'd be like if Disney sold off Pixar just because The Good Dinosaur didn't do very good in theaters.

Much of the key talent was already gone, there's a reason Rare haven't made a single great game since 2001. A company is only as good as they people who work there. 

That's a bit of a harsh take. While certainly not living up to their previous standards, Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, and Viva Pinata were great games. And while not my cup of tea, Sea of Thieves is by a landslide their biggest game ever. 



You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind

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Ryuu96 on 01 November 2024
curl-6 said:
CaptainExplosion said:

Well for me that's an awful way of looking at it. That'd be like if Disney sold off Pixar just because The Good Dinosaur didn't do very good in theaters.

Much of the key talent was already gone, there's a reason Rare haven't made a single great game since 2001. A company is only as good as they people who work there. 

Conker: Live & Reloaded and Kameo were both good. Viva Pinata franchise was great too, from the Banjo veteran Gregg Mayles. Sea of Thieves is great too, even if it's not your thing, pretty wild to make a statement like that when Sea of Thieves currently sits at 295,000 user reviews on Steam at 89% and is almost certainly Rare's most successful/biggest game in their history.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 01 November 2024

curl-6 on 01 November 2024
G2ThaUNiT said:
curl-6 said:

Much of the key talent was already gone, there's a reason Rare haven't made a single great game since 2001. A company is only as good as they people who work there. 

That's a bit of a harsh take. While certainly not living up to their previous standards, Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, and Viva Pinata were great games. And while not my cup of tea, Sea of Thieves is by a landslide their biggest game ever. 

Those games had too many problems in my view to qualify as great, especially compared to their 1994-2001 output which were industry leading.



Doctor_MG on 01 November 2024

I think more people would have purchased a GameCube. Idk if it would be 20M more, but definitely at least 10M.

Nintendo may not have made the Wii since they could have thought that their sales weren't going to always be cannibalized by Sony. Which means they may have never had those huge sales. Which could mean Nintendo drops out of the home console hardware race sooner and focuses on portability quicker (i.e. No Wii U).

Sony wouldn't have pushed online gaming as much, though it still would have pushed it. PS Plus would have never happened, which means no PS Plus tiers and, of course, no Gamepass.

PS3 would have been MORE successful, and I doubt PS3 would have changed much. Maybe they would have released it later with more RAM?



CaptainExplosion on 02 November 2024
G2ThaUNiT said:
curl-6 said:

Much of the key talent was already gone, there's a reason Rare haven't made a single great game since 2001. A company is only as good as they people who work there. 

That's a bit of a harsh take. While certainly not living up to their previous standards, Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, and Viva Pinata were great games. And while not my cup of tea, Sea of Thieves is by a landslide their biggest game ever. 

Yes, but Rare has never made a return to form, which is what I've lamented for years. -_-