Rare during the N64 days were better than any in-house Nintendo team.

Banjo Kazooie was the best platformer of its time (wiped the floor with Mario 64) Diddy Kong Racing too (wiped the floor with mario Kart), Golden-Eye best console FPS for years to follow, Perfect Dark (never played but I've heard similar things), Donky Kong 64 (never played but will try on NSO)

Retro during the 6th gen. Sure, the culprit is Prime, but it single handedly put Nintendo and the GC back into the discussion. I do think that Rare might have the edge of quantitative streak of successful games, but NOTHING comes even remotely close to Prime. The fact that it's still fully playable, and arguably better than most first person games today, after a quarter century in the most intensely contested genre... yeah, Rare wasn't even the peak platformer developer for their respective period.

Edit: reading through the other responses I do find it curious how many people have fond memories of Rare. I guess I might be the odd one out when it comes to liking their development style. 

Loved both in their prime, but I gotta give it to Rare because my favorite genre is Platformer and they mostly did those. Nowadays I'd go with Retro because they actually are doing something.

Rare by a looong shot. Retro had Metroid Prime, which is a huge standout, and the later DKC games. Sure that's a good record. But Rare was pretty much equal alongside Nintendo during the N64 as the two companies that held up the entire system. And that was after making several standout games on SNES too.

During the mid to late 90's Nintendo, Rare, and Square stood out as the three studios at the pinnacle of gaming.

Rare, which makes me even more upset about their current state.

I'd even say Banjo is just plain better than Super Mario 64. Don't get me wrong: Rare IS one hell of a developer. I just think that Tropical Freeze and the Prime Trilogy are ABSURDLY good. 

I'd say their peaks are similar: DKC1 and DKC2 are equal to MP1 and MP2. Rare had many, many other great games whereas I would go so far as to say Retro's lack of output just can't compete.

Rare.

I think Retro might be bigger among certain Internet Nintendo fan circles, but that’s popularity in an echo-chamber/bubble. On the other hand, Rare was one of the most popular studios in the overall console gaming fanbase across three generations. And I’d even argue that Retro’s predecessor studio, Iguana Entertainment, was more popular and more cutting edge in its time across the overall base (NBA Jam was a massive arcade hit and sold 6 million copies on consoles).

Speaking about cutting edge: the Donkey Kong Country trilogy for SNES. It was pushing some of the most advanced graphical tech of its time, and didn’t have that tradeoff of graphics meaning limited gameplay that other high-end graphics games of its time (like Myst) had. It looked better than its competitors on much more powerful hardware (until at least FF7). Commercially, DKC was the biggest and most exciting game series of its time (the 3 year transitional period between the 16 bit and 32/64 but generations). Nothing had inspired such hype and word of mouth anticipation since Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES; and there was nothing like it again until Zelda 64. At 9.3 million units sold, the original Donkey Kong Country stands as the top selling game of the 16-bit home console generation that wasn’t a Sonic or Mario platformer (and fourth overall after Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog 1, and Super Mario Allstars) and the overall top selling game between the releases of Mario Allstar in 1993 and Pokémon in 1996.

In the following generation, Rare had Goldeneye 007, one of the top 10 best selling games of the entire generation, and it was the most popular multiplayer game of its time… its only rival on the multiplayer front was Super Mario Kart 64… a series that Rare’s own Pro-Am series inspired.

As a note of interest, Diddy King Racing was in development as “Pro-Am 64” before it was rebranded. So that series is a direct spiritual successor.

I’d also like to call out some more of my favourite NES era Rare titles, fantastic in their time: Captain Skyhawk, Battletoads, Cobra Triangle, and of course RC Pro-Am.

Retro made great games. Rare changed industries.

It doesn't feel like a serious question. Rare of course.