I remember the good times with my SNES playing killer instincts hours on end.I think they also published donkey kong, it too also got it's fair playing time.

Rare was so great back in the N64 days...

Good read. 

It is long ago that I read a long article as this one;. (I wished it was a video retrospective it is a hell lot more interesting).

Good written and I love a lot of their games Banjo was one of my favourite N64 games and Kameo is one of my favourite X360 games awesome!

Rare didn't just lose its touch when they were sold to Microsoft... They lost half their employees and their freedom. Now they need to make what Microsoft orders them to. That's why Banjo-Kazooie looks completely different than it used to (for good or bad).

Mendicate Bias,

Rare already had a handheld division long before they were sold to Microsoft. They've developed games for all Nintendo handhelds since the Gameboy Color, as far as I can remember. Secondly, Rare only developed two games for the Xbox, Conkers live and reloaded and grabbed by the ghoulies. The other games they developed where for the GBA, Which provided additional revenue.

Another thing to consider is that Nintendo Handhelds are very popular in all major territories. This means that Microsoft gets to target consumers who do not own an Xbox 360. For instance, Kameo, which is in development for the DS, gets released and has great sales. Fans of the game may want more and the only place that they will find more is exclusively on the Xbox 360. This could translate into more consoles sold.

Additionally, Microsoft may want to enter the Handheld market at some point in time. None of their first party studios know how to develop for a handheld except for Rare. Rare could provide their expertise to the other developers like Bungie who could then make a fps game like Halo or some other game tailor made for a handheld that deals with the limitations of a handheld, like the lack of processing power of the cpu, gpu, and the ram. And adjusting to a different control scheme. Remember when Microsoft wanted to develop avatars for the Xbox 360. They turned to Rare.

Rare lost their touch and then they were sold to M$.

It's unfortunate that the great Rare of the SNES and N64 days have fallen so far (in my eyes).

@ patjuan

I see what your getting at here, now that I think about it Microsoft has a pretty good relationship with Nintendo when it comes to handhelds. I remember they made a Halo for Nintendo DS but it was scraped for some reason. I didn't believe they would until I saw this video

http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/874110/halo-ds/videos/matt_halo_ds_vidblog.html

Today Rare are in the pits of Hell, right?