HA! Nintendo sells Rare to Microsoft!

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Imported

Lifer
Sep 2, 2000
14,679
23
81
Ah.. Fun games those were. :( Didn't have a Nintendo system so all I got to play from Nintendo were from friends..
 

neomits

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2001
3,228
0
76
GoldenEye was like the Halo of N64. Without it it would have been nearly nothing to the general gamer (kinda how I feek about Xbox currently)

and Perfect Dark was like Halo 2.


 

thawolfman

Lifer
Dec 9, 2001
11,107
0
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Originally posted by: neomits
GoldenEye was like the Halo of N64. Without it it would have been nothing (kinda how I feek about Xbox currently)

and Perfect Dark was like Halo 2.

not a fan of the zeldas i take it?
 

neomits

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2001
3,228
0
76
Originally posted by: thawolfman
Originally posted by: neomits
GoldenEye was like the Halo of N64. Without it it would have been nothing (kinda how I feek about Xbox currently)

and Perfect Dark was like Halo 2.

not a fan of the zeldas i take it?

Oh, don't get me wrong ... I LOVED TO DEATH both Zelda's and Mario and Mario Kart.... I'm just saying that GOlden Eye was the game that gave it extra attention OTHER than the fanboy games you and I love. I'm sure plenty of other people played Zelda, I just think GOlden Eye gave nintedno a broader audience
 

wyvrn

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
10,074
0
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Sega Genesis outsold the SNES at the time, but after that Sega took a dump. I doubt this will hurt Nintendo as they have plenty of other titles left, and they cater to the younger market which the other consoles don't. They'll be fine.
 

spaceman

Lifer
Dec 4, 2000
17,617
183
106
gee.super mario sunshine breaking all types of sales records.
the gba absoutely dominating
metroid prime on the way
rare had a couple exceptional games and many good ones.
but they aren any better than capcom/namco/konami for certain.

..somehow i think nintendo will survive.
 
Apr 5, 2000
13,256
1
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Originally posted by: ncircle
gee.super mario sunshine breaking all types of sales records.
the gba absoutely dominating
metroid prime on the way
rare had a couple exceptional games and many good ones.
but they aren any better than capcom/namco/konami for certain.

..somehow i think nintendo will survive.

Yes but Capcom/Namco/Konami never had games that made you want to buy the system, like DK Country X, 007, etc etc. Rare was one of the reasons people stuck with Nintendo. I abandoned Nintendo after Christmas and went with MS and now I'm glad I did.
 

spaceman

Lifer
Dec 4, 2000
17,617
183
106
Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Originally posted by: ncircle
gee.super mario sunshine breaking all types of sales records.
the gba absoutely dominating
metroid prime on the way
rare had a couple exceptional games and many good ones.
but they aren any better than capcom/namco/konami for certain.

..somehow i think nintendo will survive.

Yes but Capcom/Namco/Konami never had games that made you want to buy the system, like DK Country X, 007, etc etc. Rare was one of the reasons people stuck with Nintendo. I abandoned Nintendo after Christmas and went with MS and now I'm glad I did.


thats funny,i ditched my xbox for a gc and couldnt be more pleased.Its all a matter of tatse really.but Nintendo's 1st party games imo are well worth the price of admission and for sheer variety the ps2 just cant be topped.
I see the xbox as a poor mans ps2, sure it can be argued the gfx are better but so what?content is what counts.

 

Soulflare

Golden Member
Apr 16, 2000
1,801
0
0
The sale makes sense to me. Nintendo is getting out of the console hardware business
after this round, and since Rare doesn't develop anything for the GBA (or at least, anything
worthy of note), they're expendable. Nintendo's made no secret of the fact that they are
in the videogame business to make money, not win. Chances are that Microsoft was willing
to pay Nintendo way more than they felt their shares were worth.
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
Nintendo IS NOT getting out of the hardware business. They didn't even start to claim that!
Did you notice that GameCube controllers are $14.99 and N64 controllers are still $29.99? XBOX controllers were $39, PS2 was $35 not both can be had for $24.99. Nintendo's WaveBird was supposed to be a premium controller drawing in more profits, however it sells for the old GC pad's price though it cost more to make. The consoles, though they lose money on every one sold, price drops have FORCE each company to loose even more. Basically, Nintendo just said "enough" and "Let's compete on the software level and stop fighting hardware price wars." Now they will stick with current hardware longer until it is cheap enough to move on because (Unlike the SNES or Genesis for instance) current hardware is good enough for a watered down version of any game in the future.
 

CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
30,322
4
0
Originally posted by: Yzzim
What the hell?

Why? That just doesn't make any sense at all.

Why? This is why:


With Rare software contributions amounting to only 9.5% of total revenues in Nintendo's fiscal 2001 year, and a miniscule 1.5% in fiscal 2002, the publisher weighed the benefits and drawbacks of making additional investments in Rare and decided against it.




I would garner that if Rare was only pulling in 1.5% of the annual revenue then they were probably losing money for the company, regardless of how good their games may seem to be.

 

DeadHead

Senior member
Jun 12, 2002
243
0
0
If Nintendo goes out of buisness (which they won't) who will own the Seattle Mariners??? :Q

Maybe they might not spend the money on making games, and insted on the team?
 

Maverick

Diamond Member
Jun 14, 2000
5,900
0
76
Originally posted by: DeadHead
If Nintendo goes out of buisness (which they won't) who will own the Seattle Mariners??? :Q

Maybe they might not spend the money on making games, and insted on the team?

Maybe then the team will actually go somewhere ;)
 

Kev

Lifer
Dec 17, 2001
16,367
4
81
Nintendo benefits from this. They're getting $250 million for a company who puts out maybe 1 or 2 games per year on average. They get to use that money to fund other development houses. Microsoft just paid half a billion dollars for Rare. Do you really think that it will pay off?

And Rare isn't such a big deal anymore, because most of their talent left the company. The entire team behind Goldeneye is gone. When MS bought out Rare, they lost Rare's founders and creative drive.

Besides, Nintendo has Sega making games for it now.

And another thing, Nintendo isn't going anywhere. I think they made somewhere in the range of $8 billion in profits last year. With the Gameboy Advance, there's no way they're going anywhere.
 

FeathersMcGraw

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2001
4,041
1
0
Originally posted by: CPA

With Rare software contributions amounting to only 9.5% of total revenues in Nintendo's fiscal 2001 year, and a miniscule 1.5% in fiscal 2002, the publisher weighed the benefits and drawbacks of making additional investments in Rare and decided against it.

I would garner that if Rare was only pulling in 1.5% of the annual revenue then they were probably losing money for the company, regardless of how good their games may seem to be.

Of course, the way Rare's release schedule works, they only put out a couple of games a year anyway. The only title of theirs I recall in 2001 was Conker's Bad Fur Day, and the N64 was already on the way out at that point (although the M rating probably didn't help its sales any).

The timing for Nintendo to retain ownership was probably poor, but I think those financial numbers would have been very different if they'd checked, say, in a month or two. Star Fox Adventures has been an anticipated A-list title since before the GameCube was released and is only one of three titles that I've preordered for it (the other two were Rogue Leader and Super Mario Sunshine).
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
Originally posted by: CPA
Originally posted by: Yzzim
What the hell?

Why? That just doesn't make any sense at all.

Why? This is why:


With Rare software contributions amounting to only 9.5% of total revenues in Nintendo's fiscal 2001 year, and a miniscule 1.5% in fiscal 2002, the publisher weighed the benefits and drawbacks of making additional investments in Rare and decided against it.




I would garner that if Rare was only pulling in 1.5% of the annual revenue then they were probably losing money for the company, regardless of how good their games may seem to be.
Uh, gee I wonder why Rareware profits have been so low: DUH! They haven't released a single game yet this year! And last year all of their big projects were moved to GameCube, meaning no big releases there either.
 

Smolek

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
4,985
1
0
the trademarks are a lot of the value too. If they got a trademark such as the popular game "Perfect Dark" then they have the chance to win over gamers who havent bought an xbox yet.
 

Glitchny

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2002
5,679
1
0
someone on here said they converted to microsoft and like it more than anything else? i would rather be plaiyng board games than dealing with them, acualyl monopoly does have the same ring to it as microsoft.... and the SNES was by far the best system, best games, and the XBOX is shitty, it si computer parts but into a box without a monitor. which over heats locksup and has other problems common to buggy computers... and since graphics chiups ar already faster than the XBOX they can go to he*l

and since nintendo started consoles basicly i doubt they are gonna be going anywhere soon, and who knows maybe they tap into ATI to make thier next system and blow microshaft out of the water.... cause it wasnt actualyl ATI taht did the GC was Artx
 

LH

Golden Member
Feb 16, 2002
1,604
0
0
The Stamper Bros, the founders of Rare, are still there. And will be for the forseeable future. If in fact they do eventually leave, they will likely not be able to do anything in the game industry for a year because they likely have non compete agreements in their contracts.

Rare still has most of its talent.

Its a good buy on MS's part. They will continue to buy companies(no one bitches when EA, or VU, or other publishers do). Theres going to be alot of conslidation of the smaller studios. Sure MS has the Xbox, but its main goal really is becoming the largest and most profitable videogame publisher, which they are well on there way in getting there...

 

Snapster

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 2001
3,916
0
0
Rare has lost it's creative drive, and since they lost allot of their talented developers Rare has been churning out average quality collactathon games for a while, it's no wonder Nintendo seen fit to sell them at an over inflated price. Even SFA on the Gamecube is a collectathon.
 

Dragnov

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
6,878
0
0
Why would Nintendo go down? I actully think they are the only company making money on their consoles, while Sony and X-Box lose money on thier consoles. I remember reading somehwere that Nintendo is on the top 10 of Japenese businesses or something like that. They are very efficient and business like, hence cutting a company that doesn't offer them enough value. I never played those Rare games so I'm not at all affected. Heck, I'm even having trouble keeping up to Nintendo Platform games... Smash Bro, Mario, Animal Crossing, Metroid (soon), Mario Part 4 (soon), and Star Fox still came out on GC. Not only that, the Gameboy is the best selling system....