Was Microsoft's acquisition of Rare worth it in hindsight?

Rare was a big deal back in the 90s and early 2000s. Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, all great classics. Since the acquisition in 2002, the only Rare game I can think of that's been fairly successful was Sea of Thieves. I did enjoy Killer Instinct for X1 for what it was..but overall, would you say Microsoft's acquisition of Rare worth it in hindsight, SW?

They killed the studio. Killer Instrict was the only very high quality title from them.

Do we really need to have several Microsoft acquisitition-related threads?

@onesiphorus: copium, bitterness pretty much sums it up

For me it was. I really enjoyed Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Also their back catalogue has been well treated and made available to play on current gen systems. I love Nintendo but there’s no telling how things would have turned out there, especially when it comes to how their back catalogue of games would have been treated.

Sea Of Thieves is one of Microsoft's biggest and most successful IP's to date. We'll have to wait and see what Rare does next.

Killer Instinct on the Xbox One wasn't developed by Rare.

Sea of Thieves has certainly grown into something, adds to the value of their subscription service, not to mention everything under the Rare Replay umbrella, and the studio's IPs.

Finally, the first copium thread. I know it was coming. 😂

Yes, it was. Just for the ip alone, banjo, conkers, perfect dark. These have potential, and it's up to MS to develop them. But if they did, there would be a bunch of nintendo fans interested.

I think, other than the avatar stuff, Rare has been great. I have enjoyed their games, even Nuts and Bolts

Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts sea of thieves killer instinct

The motion shit MS tried to do was a bust tho

They got some decent games out of rare, could be better tho

@sargentd: the cows just don't understand how big rare was back in the day. They literally invented the entire console fps genre with golden eye and perfect dark. People call halo the game that put fps on consoles on the map. And that would be true. But when golden eye released back in 1997, at the time it was being called the greatest fps game of all time, not just on console but across all platforms. There was nothing that could match up to Golden eye or perfect dark in it's peak. The fact MS has access to both IPs is a huge win for them.

To this day, there's a bunch of people salty about nintendo selling off rare to MS. And yes it's true that while they haven't lived up to expectations, rare was a great pickup for MS.

@blaznwiipspman1: comparing Rare under Nintendo vs Rare under Xbox, it's not even close.

@blaznwiipspman1: golden eye was my childhood , it was the game I got with my N64. Best 4 player split screen at the time, everybody loved that game.

I heard a new golden eye might be getting worked on now. If they do it, it's gotta have that arcadey 4 player splitscreen and online.

I'm a big fan of platformers and Banjo kazooi with Mario 64 was cream of the crop. Rare is solid.

I still haven't tried sea of theves but I've heard they added alot of good stuff, might check it out on GP

Sony kids are so mad today. Love it. They cry about exclusives being anti-gamer, but then you ask them for Demon Souls or Spider-Man on XBOX and they cry more.

Hypocrites.

We had R.C. Pro AM Battletoads Donkey Kong Country 1-3 Golden Eye Perfect Dark

NOW LOOK AT MICROSOFTS RARE bunch of crap viva pinata crap crap

@SolidGame_basic: thats definitely true, but MS has the IP, and they just need some competent studio to work on it alongside rare. Which they have plenty of.

I personally MS should divert resources from activision to build up more of these games. We really don't need a COD every single year.

@sargentd: yep golden eye was my childhood too haha. 4 player split screen would definitely be cool to see again on a goldeneye.

As for sea of thieves, I heard it sucked at the start but rare kept working on it and now its a solid game with a decent sized community.

@zerothehero: but Protos, you said this

"The Xbox brand needs FF to survive imo without it its a crap brand filled with shooters"

How we supposed to take you seriously

I have no clue of how much money Rare's games have given MS, so I can't answer.

Personally though, I think Rare is a good studio, that sadly went from "fucking awesome" with Nintendo to just "good" with MS. Sea of Thieves is good, but could've been much better. Killer Instinct is really good, but I personally think it's sabotaged with the addition of auto combos. Seriously. Auto combos? In a fighting game? The **** is the point of playing then?

Probably not. It was a very different Microsoft back then.

Having said that, it's a very different Rare today as well, even though they're doing relatively better these days.

In opinion it hasn't worked as ms hoped they brought a shell of the company it was. There is some promise with the ongoing work on sea of thieves.

@SolidGame_basic: you should check out Kameo at 60fps on XSX

It's one of the main reasons I want an XSX

Sea of Thieves remains as my go-to chill out game of choice, and Rare have done a great job producing a fun, unique experience. Other games they’ve made under MS have been good, but SOT is my favourite Rare game. Yes, it was worth buying Rare.

Rare was already a sunken ship before they join MS many years ago and there's a reason why Nintendo didn't want them at all when Rare pleaded help to buy them out but Rare had poor management issues and Nintendo abandon them for that. MS just happened to somewhat finish the job and everything you see Rare is a shadow of it's former-self. Sea of Thieves is now better than it was on launch day but nowhere near as good now as No Man's Sky.

With Rare's awesome 360 offerings and now with Sea of mofo Thieves becoming a yuuuuge success I'd have to say it was a match made in gaming heaven for both MS/Rare. :P

MS-era Rare is a different company from Nintendo-era Rare. Much of the staff from Nintendo-era Rare left in the MS era. It's not the same company anymore. The old Rare died after MS acquired it.

Nope, couldn't finish any of their X360 offerings and later on their games got even worse.

The last game I liked from Rare was Kameo: Elements of Power. So, the Rare acquisition was definitely a bust.

Sea of Thieves is one of the biggest games on XBL. Some of the games that Rare has created while part of MSGS include:

• Perfect Dark Zero
• Kameo
• Viva Pinata
• multiple Kinect projects

The problem with Rare is that they were put on Kinect projects last gen. While their Kinect games were good, no one wanted the Kinect (yet another MS blunder in the XBO days), and the Kinect itself was garbage. So, they didn't "kill the studio", they were just making games that were not talked about in SW.

Rare is now at over 200 devs, MS has increased the size of the company every year for the past 5 years.

Yes

@dabear:

Yup, Rare rocked on 360, all those games scored GS 8.0's and were some of the most unique games offered that gen.

MS buying Rare was some of the most saltiest times in VG history and as you can likely tell it remains much the same even to this day.

lol :P

Rare games are overrated.

I don't think Sea of Thieves is overrated. It's an 8/10 game (for me), and has gotten better and better since launch.

My problem with rare is they take so long releasing games everwild probably 4 years out.

Rare really should have made BK3 instead of Nuts & Bolts, but they didn't.

Seems like they finally got a hit with Sea of Thieves tho. That game seems to be fairly popular.

No they didn't, the original team left a long time ago. Rare is only worth their IPs now.

The latest Killer Instinct isn't a RARE game, they only consulted. Another developer made the latest Killer Instinct game.

Then explain to me how is it that they didn't make anything worthwhile the first few years after they were acquired? I mean, they were in charge of creating Avatar's clothing lol

Yup. I watched sea of thieves grow into a blast to play with others. Game is so fun with a crew of friends or making new ones.

sea of thieves was by and far the best new IP last gen and is still going strong as a GAAS with new content and events and a large playerbase. They are also working on a new IP everwilds. people liked killer instinct as well and gave them a launch title but i'm not into fighting games. excited about everwilds though

Okay, I will explain it to you. They actually started making poor games BEFORE they were acquired.

What were they doing on the GameCube that was so great? Star Fox Adventures?

The N64 was their golden era, but they struggled ever since. MS got them right at the end of their use.

They did make a few good games early on the Xbox 360, up until 2007. What happened then? The Stamper brothers left gaming completely.

A developers is only as good as their staff. What is Nintendo without Miyamoto and others like him?

Classic Rare isn't that great IMO. So they are kind of at the same spot. There was a phase when MS gave very little creative freedom to their teams and that hurt them no doubt. But they seem to be doing fine with SoT.

So MS purchased a pointless developer? Interesting.

@hardwenzen: They only purchased half, Nintendo gave them the other half for free. Microsoft promised to put Sony out of business and Nintendo agreed. The deal will soon pay off.

What's your opinion about it?

I mean, it eviscerated one of it's competition in gen six. But... that's about it.

Rare is great. Sea of Thieves is their most successful game to date. Viva Piñata was huge and had a cartoon for Saturday mornings too.