Xbox Boss Says Rare "Will Be an Important Part" of Microsoft Future

Microsoft has once again given a vote of confidence to Rare, the British studio best known for its work on Nintendo games like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Banjo-Kazooie. In an interview with CVG, Xbox boss Phil Spencer described Rare as being an "important part of our game future," and stated that he doesn't want it to become exclusively associated with Kinect Sports.

"I'm a Rare fan from the N64 days--that's kind of where my relationship with them was built," he said. "The range of genres that Rare exceeded at on N64 was crazy; you go from GoldenEye, to Conker and Banjo, Diddy Kong Racing... they were all over the place and they nailed a wide variety of genres."

"I don't want the Rare brand to mean Kinect Sports" -- Phil Spencer

Since Microsoft's acquisition of the company in 2002, Rare has released new entries in some of its classic franchises, including Conker: Live & Reloaded and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. More recently, it's developed the Xbox 360's Avatars system and worked almost exclusively on Kinect, with its last few games being in the Kinect Sports series. Spencer, who has stated in the past that Microsoft hasn't forced Rare to develop Kinect games (as some have accused), states he doesn't want it to become a Kinect Sports-only studio.

"Right now with Rare we're at a point where I don't want the Rare brand to mean Kinect Sports," Spencer said. "The Rare brand can be more valuable to them, to us, and to gamers than that."

That is noteworthy in part because Microsoft began selling the Xbox One without Kinect (a requirement for Kinect Sports) in June. This will, at least in the short term, result in at least a portion of Xbox One owners not owning a Kinect, though Microsoft expects selling the device separately will eventually lead to more people owning one.

We know Rare is at work on new projects that Microsoft describes as "ambitious." Spencer didn't provide any details as to what it's working on, but he did suggest the studio remains important, even after it was hit by layoffs earlier this year. "So they've got some new ideas, they're excited about them," he said, "and I think Rare should, can and will be an important part of our game future."