Microsoft Buys Rare

Phwoar writes "Microsoft have announced their buyout of the games developer Rare. After a $375 million payoff Rare will now produce games solely for the Xbox. After Rare's recent releases for the Nintendo systems bombed, Nintendo decided to sell their 49% stake in the company last week rather than buy the company themselves. Google News has a nice collection of links to articles regarding the announcement." You might be reminded of Microsoft's purchase of Bungie a few years ago.

Comments

Re:No Great Loss

[morgajel]

if you read up on the release, nintendo kept a lot of IP, including the rights to some of their classics like donkey kong, etc.

the legacy of nintendo titles is just that- a legacy... not really an asset.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.

[Tim Browse]

As some guy from MS pointed out when asked about the HD reliability of the XBox, he reckoned the DVD drives used in current generation consoles (XBox, PS2, GC) were the most likely point of failure. The hard drive was definitely lower down his list of things to worry about.

Shrug.

Tim

Re:Bungie, Rare, ... Sega

[CondeZer0]

> I think the obvious next move is for Microsoft to buy Sega.
They already have tried:
http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0716/sega07 1602.html

And after that they tried to buy Nintendo for 25Bn(I think to remember 2.5Bn,
but in the news sites I found it says 25Bn!):
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131308
http://gameinfowire.com/news.asp?nid=263

I don't remember much, I just found this links by looking in google for less
than one minute, I'm sure you can find some better info elsewhere in the net.

My favorite part of this history is the answer of Nintendo: "We weren't sure
what to think when Microsoft made the offer. In fact I was surprised - we
didn't need the money. I thought it was a joke."

hehehe...

I wonder what will they try next, it's obvious that they are desperate for
finding some other business now that the software licensing is going to become
obsolete thanks to opensource, I think they should stick to what(only) they are
good at: mouses ;)

\\Uriel

Re:If this is not "anti-competitive", then what is

[spectecjr]

not saying that SONY would not, if they had the money to do it -- oh wait, they DO have the money to buy a couple outside developers just for shits and giggles, but didn't.

What kind of crack are you smoking, exactly?

Nintendo bought Rare, as well as a few other houses.

Sony bought Psygnosis (Wipeout), Square (Final Fantasy; major shareholder), Polyphony Digital (the guys who did Gran Turismo), Incog (Twisted Metal), Verant (Everquest), Red Zone (989 Sports), Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicoot), The Station (Online game center), RTIME Inc. (online game infrastructure company), Millennium (Medievil), Arc Entertainment Inc., Sugar and Rockets Inc. (Kurushi), and Contrail Inc.
(Wild Arms).

So, I guess Sony's customers are suffering because of this game buy out thing?

Or do you still claim that sony DIDN'T do this?

Re:rare's best game

[Explo]

and one they should update for the XBOX..... R/C Pro-AM!!!! :)

IMO Rare's best game was Underwurlde, produced when they were still called Ultimate and produced games for 8-bit computers. ;) Sabre Wulf was not bad either, and I guess Knight Lore was pretty good, but I never saw it. All these games were mentioned on rareware.com, but sadly the information seems to have disappeared since. But you can get all that information on the Ultimate-Wurlde and get either nostalgic, enlightened about history or just plain bored. ;)