Microsoft defends their support to Rare
Peter Moore himself defended Rare only a year ago
After yesterday’s blubbering from Peter Moore, today Microsoft came out in defence of Rare to show their support towards the company.
Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Game Studios, told general press today that, for them, “Rare is a great studio that continuously delivers high-quality, award-winning titles for the Xbox platform and will continue to do so in the future.” He also reiterated the well-known interest of Microsoft to arrive to all kind of publics with the games from the British studio: “Rare plays a strategic role in delivering games and platform experiences that will help the Xbox achieve our long-term strategy of expanding the customer base to a mainstream audience.”
The fact that Peter Moore assured that “the industry had past Rare by” is quite funny. This generation, and especially this year, titles from Rare include Viva Piñata and the revolutionary Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts; both of them could have hardly been developed in previous generations. Not to say that despite not being blockbusters like Halo 3 or Gears 2, the online mode for Perfect Dark Zero, or Conker: Live & Reloaded on the backwards compatibles side, are still alive, many years after both games were released.
In words of Phil Spencer: “The studio’s current work that includes the recent release of another critically acclaimed installment in the Viva Piñata series, the reinvention of a genre and a franchise with the November release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts as well as the avatar system they’re delivering as part of the new Xbox experience not only is indicative of the value they deliver to our business but proof positive to our partners and the industry at large of our commitment to this strategy and the platform’s continued success.”
The most curious fact about this is that, only a year ago, Peter Moore himself defended the importance of Rare in an exclusive interview with Newsweek: “I certainly think people underestimate the platform-driving presence that Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo had, in particular Kameo. It signaled that this wasn’t going to be the same as Xbox 1, which was dominated by Mature-rated games, if you will, and for many people will go down in history as the Halo box or the shooter box. Kameo was very important. Kameo has done well; Perfect Dark Zero hit our expectations from a sales point of view; but these were two launch titles–and in Kameo’s case, brand new intellectual property–that allowed us to get where we needed to go very, very quickly.” Talking about the Piñata franchise, he also proclaimed himself “a big fan” of it, and asked not to “underestimate the long-term ability of Rare to continue to have a positive effect on the Xbox 360 and further platforms in the future.”
Apparently, Mr Moore should learn how to be a bit more coherent with his own thoughts, and talk about EA Sports projects for the future rather than other’s past. Except, obviously, is not that easy to get major headlines with an interview about NHL 09 or Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, which are clarly much more revolutionary.
Somehow related news
- Piñatas ’round the world! ()
- Peter Moore defends the importance of Rare ()
- Nintendo still holds legal power over GoldenEye 007 ()
- Roundtable with Britain’s Pride ()
- Rare accepts Wwise audio solutions ()
4 Comments
I just love it when everyone blames Microsoft for Rares failings when in fact Rare would still be making the same mistakes if they were still developing for Nintendo.
Comment by The BS Police — 19.Sep.08 @ 9:30 am
Rare still does well I mean it’s not as bad as people act it is. I think most of the games under microsoft are in the same league as nintendo games from Rare, in fact viva pinata is one of my favorite franchises from Rare right on top with Conker and Banjo-Kazooie Rare is still good it just depends if the person who calls themselves a Rare fan can deal with their leaving nintendo, which is no big deal to me.
Comment by saicambanjo — 20.Sep.08 @ 6:43 am
Who won the Banjo Anniversary contest? Announced yet, or not?
Comment by trapman — 18.Sep.08 @ 8:51 pm