|
Microsoft buys out Rareware
Editorial by Trent Dickerson
---
Rareware, a company whose games were a rare commodity on Nintendo's systems, are now the only games Nintendo will have form them because of the recent announcement that Rareware has switched sides in the console wars and are now officically residing in Microsoft's camp.
Long has the buy out been rumored, but it wasn't until E3 2002 that most started to pay attention. Rareware showed nbo new games under development (with the exception of Star Fox Adventures). Th worried many, but Rare denied everything...at least for a while. I believe it was about in July when in an interview with Rare, a couple of new developments had occured. When asked if they were workinh on any Xbox games, they flat out denied it. However, when questioned whether or not they had even been sent Xbox development kits, they simply responded, "No comment." This is when the rumors really started to fly on the Net.
Towards the end of August, it had been revealed by an inside source within Rare that "Conker's Bad Fur Day 2" for GameCube had been cancelled, supposedly due to poor sales of the original on the Nintendo 64. Then sometime at the beginning of September I think, games such as "Donkey Kong Racing" and "Kameo: Elements of Power" mysteriously disappeared from Rare's upcoming games list on their website. Rare responded by saying the problem was due to site re-construction.
By the middle of September, the details finally started to unravel and the horrible nightmare had come true. An anonymous source within Nintendo revealed that the company had sold all their stock in Rare AND their 50% ownership to Microsoft. Neither Nintendo no Microsoft nor Rare would make an official announcement for several weeks. Nintendo themselves finally made an official announcement about a week after the source revealed its story, with Microsoft following several weeks later at the Microsoft X02 event in Spain.
Game sites throughout the Web are STILL in disagreement as to whether or not the loss of Rare from Nintendo was truly a loss at all. Nintendo had said in their official announcement that in 2000, Rare accounted for 12% of total games sales worlwide for them. In 2001, they only accounted for 2%. So apparently to Nintendo, it was not that big of a loss(besides sentimental value). However, though I may be a loyal Nintendophile, I must disagree with them.
Games such as "Perfect Dark Zero", "Kameo: Elements of Power", and "Banjo-Kazooie" will only prove to be a punch in the face to Nintendo in the end, since they have now lost some of the most potentially successful games any system could have. Though those gamnes could be considered "kiddie", those "kiddie" games could end up bring in the "kiddie" audience Microsoft seems to be lacking, thus cementing themselves in the No.2 spot in the console wars. Bad move Nintendo, bad move.
|
