Microsoft isn't in the handheld war and making games for the DS just gives them more money for games they don't even have to work on.  That doesn't surprise me at all.

Also I think the people who are defending the Rare of today are the young ones who weren't there or just too young for the previous generations ;)

Rare of the 90s >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rare of today

 Actually, I got into Rare ever since they launched Donkey Kong Country on the SNES :P

I miss the old Rare, the Rare that gave me Donkey Kong Country and Perfect Dark.

Rare has had many ups and downs throughout history, but I must admit the downfall has been the biggest in the Microsoft-days.
Stamper bros. gone, average quality gone from ''legendary'' to ''damn good'', the company had a huge golden age in the late '90s, now little of it is left, and that's a shame.

But as I said, Rare's games are still awesome. Kameo was the only 360 launch title that actually impressed me, the amount of characters on the screen was something I had never seen before. Viva Piñata is a unique game, probably the best they've done in years(though it's not my genre).
Now this fall I'll be playing a new Banjo-game, one of my favourite franchises, and I'm glad Rare isn't making it an old-school platformer, but is intead doing something fresh. This is a brave move, and it's going to make the game at least have its own shadow instead of standing in the original's shadow. If Nuts and Bolts manages to even come close to Banjo-Tooie(or even Banjo-Kazooie!) in greatness, there's still hope that Rare can be salvaged.
If that doesn't happen, perhaps it would be best to get Rare back to good old Nintendo to see if Miyamoto can revive them, but I'm not counting on that being neccessary.

By the way, now that the original Banjo-Kazooie is coming to XBLA, Xbox 360 fans will be able to play one of the top 3 3D platfomers ever! Congratulations! And I'll be playing it on my HD-tv for the first time, so I'm happy too.

About a VC-release of that game: I really hope that some Rare games can come to the virtual console, maybe in exchange for the original Super Mario Bros. on XBLA. That could be the first sign of an end of the console war. Or was the first sign the Wii60 fanboy alliance?

I still play donkey kong country 1 and 2, thats how great it was. I'm really hoping Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is great, it has so much potential and I'm thirsty for the genius of the Rare of old.

The Stamper Brothers didn't leave until Early 07' so they still had good programmers when they joined MS. I just don't think their games were recieved teh same way since they left Nintendo.

Also I wasn't aware that Miyamoto was upset that Nintendo allowed Rare to make Donkey Kong Country. I also didn't know that he had them use code from a new ip they were developing to make Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube. I wonder if the original game would have fared better than taking those mechanics and adding it to Star Fox? He did the right thing for the company though. I doubt Nintendo wanted Rare to debut a new ip on the Gamecube and then have all the sequels exclusive to Microsoft.

You have to understand how difficult it is to transit from on console to the other like they did.