rare is still the same great dev, they are just able to take more risks, something at nintendo they werent allowed to do. i love rare's games even more now then i ever have before, kameo was a great game, perfect dark zero was a very good fps,banjo kazooie:nuts and bolts is the best banjo yet,viva pinata is a great game with some much charm to it. every rare game has sold over 1+ million since they joined m$ and thats a very good feat these days. i think was has changed is ppl like more different games these days and not so much platforms and such, like rare used to make. so rare saw that has changed with the times, into the rare we see today and i love this rare even more. alot of ppl will disagree with me, but i dont give a shit. i am happy to keep playing and supporting rare way into the future.

Whether those are "AAA" depends on the eyes that see.

Also, I have a developer that matches that.

Intelligent Systems.

They have ~ half of the employees of Rare.

2001:

Mario Kart Super Circuit

Advance Wars (1)

Paper Mario

2002:

Fire Emblem Fuuin no surugi (6)

2003:

Fire Emblem (7)

Advace Wars: Black hole rising (2)

2004:

Fire Emblem: The sacred stones (8)

Paper Mario 2

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (9)

There's a few I didn't list, but that matches Rare (not even considering they have half the employees).

94:
DKC

95:
Killer Instinct
DKC2

96:
KI Gold
DKC3

97:
Goldeneye
Blast Corps
DKC Racing

98:
Banjo-Kazooie (only game released that year)

99:
Jet Force Gemini
DK 64

2000:
Perfect Dark
Banjo-Tooie
Mickey's game

2001:
Conker's Bad Fur Day

--

And I didn't list Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and BT and Double Dragon 93

although today KI's qualities may be questionable (I still like it though!), yeah, from 94 to 2001 there's at least one "AAA" game per year :P

Oh please, spare us this nonsense...

You beat me to it.

Once Nintendo pulled their people out of Rare, it was nighty night.

Was it really 2 per year? I loved Rare back in the day but... lemme think...

I wouldn't call KIGold, Blast Corps (which I love dearly), Jet Force Gemini or Mickey Kart Racing AAA titles.

Goldeneye.

Perfect Dark

Bankjo Kazooie

Banjo Tooie

Conker's BFD

Diddy Kong Racing

Donkey Kong 64

Hrm... not quite, but close enough.

*sigh* I miss the N64 days...

Didn't Rare have some wicked founding as well? I recall reading that Banjo-Kazooie (or was it Tooie?) was more expensive to make than SM64

As Rare failed to do anything great right away for Microsoft, they didn't give them a lot of founding, which causes their games to lose quality.

That could be part of the reason...

they arent the same, but to say Viva Pinata, Banjo NAB, Kameo and PD0 are bad games your all crazy.

I remember calling Rare weakening when they left Nintendo back in what 2000? 2001? Anyways, I always thought there greatness was a combination of their own techinical talent (why their graphics rocked) and Nintendo's imput and Nintendo just has that knack for making games more fun (heck they even made Wii Music fun)

I think the same could be said for Retro. They would be nothing without Nintendo, look at what they were before...

Maybe they got rid of them cause one of the main things in rare's games were state of the art graphics & that wasn't really part of nintendo's strategy anymore?

Either way, i miss them too, they should come back :p