Rare
From RWP Wiki
| Rare Ltd. | |
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| Founded | 1982 by Chris and Tim Stamper |
| CEO | |
| President | |
| Employees | ~200 |
| Website | rare.co.uk |
Rare, Ltd. (formerly known as Rareware) is a British video game developer located in Twycross, Leicestershire. The organization was founded in 1982 by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper as Ashby Computers and Graphics Ltd. (ACG). Publishing as Ultimate Play the Game, they developed games for 8-bit platforms such as the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro. In 1985, the Ultimate name was sold to U.S. Gold in order to prevent a buyout of the whole company.
The company proceeded to focus solely on the Nintendo Entertainment System platform, and in 1994 they entered an exclusive publishing agreement with Nintendo. Rare achieved great critical acclaim and earned an international reputation for creating Incredible SNES and Nintendo 64 titles such as Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007 and Banjo-Kazooie, among others. In 2002, Microsoft paid US$375 million for a 100% acquisition of the company, a record high for the purchase of a development company. As a result, Rare is now a subsidiary of Microsoft Studios.
On 2 January 2007, it was announced that founders Tim and Chris Stamper left Rare to pursue "other opportunities". Rare's current Senior Studio Director is Craig Duncan, a developer who has previously worked on Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and the Colin McRae Rally series.
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Nintendo Era
Rare is the company behind many of the most famous games for Nintendo's various gaming systems: Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country (and its sequels), Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Blast Corps, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, Star Fox Adventures, Diddy Kong Racing DS.
Its games employed some of the latest graphics technology. One of its most critically acclaimed and popular series was the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, due to its use of pre-framed 3D graphics on a largely 2D console. Rare then firmly cemented their reputation for creating epic games with their releases between 1997 and 2001 on the Nintendo 64. Although Super Mario 64 can lay claim to be the first platform game on the Nintendo 64, Rare took this template and expanded upon it in their own style in a string of critically acclaimed platform games for the N64, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Tooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day.
GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is considered by many to be their biggest success, known even today as one of the gold standards for console first-person shooters, eventually selling 7.8 million copies. On March 16th 2012 through September 30th 2012 This game will be on display alongside three other titles at the Smithsonian. Rareware's Killer Instinct also added several features to the fighting game genre such as autodouble combos, combo linkers, and ultra combos.
Rareware's games have also been notable for their outstanding music. CD soundtracks have been released for all three Donkey Kong Country titles, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64. Such games typically include a range of industrial rock and techno styles composed with synthesizers.
Microsoft era
Up from the end of 2000, people from Activision and Microsoft visited Rare. In November 2001, Microsoft trademarked the name It's Mr. Pants, the name of a game which was released three years later. In September 2002, the Stamper brothers sold their 51% interest in Rare to Microsoft; following this, Nintendo sold their 49% stake in the company as well. Microsoft paid a total of $377 million for the company. Because of this, Rare is now a first-party developer for Microsoft's Xbox and its successors. This left Donkey Kong Racing, which was due to be released for the Nintendo Gamecube, unreleased, though how much more had been completed of the game than the pre-released video is not in the public domain. The trademarks of the characters from the games that Rare made for Nintendo consoles (such as Conker of Conker's Bad Fur Day and Banjo from the Banjo-Kazooie series) were retained by Rare (apart from intellectual properties originally developed by Nintendo, i.e. Donkey Kong and Star Fox). Despite the acquisition, Rare still developed games for Game Boy Advance, and now develops for the Nintendo DS, as Microsoft is currently not participating in the hand-held video game console market. Rare has never developed for Sony platforms.
Rare's first Xbox game, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, received an average Metacritic score of 66/100. Its beat 'em up action and various challenges, for two things, differentiated it from the previously released and superficially similar Luigi's Mansion by Nintendo on the Gamecube.
August 2003 brought news that Rare and Microsoft had made a deal with THQ to publish Rare's Game Boy Advance games, which as of December 2004 have included Sabrewulf, a game based on its Ultimate character, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, a "midquel" to the two Nintendo 64 games, and It's Mr. Pants!, a puzzle game that was originally developed as "Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers", and featured the company's unofficial mascot. January 2005 saw the completion of this deal, with the release of Banjo Pilot (which prior to being acquired by MS, was in development as "Diddy Kong Pilot"). Rare also ported and extended the Donkey Kong Country series, which was published by Nintendo.
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2004, Microsoft's Ken Lobb stated that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two titles for the Nintendo DS. Shortly after, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development. However, on July 8, 2005, Rare posted job openings for Nintendo DS development on its official website, and stated that it was "creating key DS titles". The first of these games is an online-capable port of Diddy Kong Racing.
In 2005, Rare released Conker: Live and Reloaded, essentially the same single player game as the N64's Conker's Bad Fur Day but with a reworked multiplayer option. Previously due to be known as Conker: Live and Uncut, this would have been an untrue description as the Xbox game ironically featured more "censoring" than the original Nintendo 64 version. Publicity for the game practically unanimously concentrated on the war-oriented multiplayer game. The game has an average Metacritic score of 78/100.
Rare made something of a resurgence when Microsoft's Xbox 360 console was released in late 2005. Two of the Xbox 360's launch titles were developed by Rare, Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero, with Viva Piñata released the next year.
Games
Rare has developed around 130 video games since its foundation, with sales nearing the 90 million units as of 2002. Although the company is notable for its platform and shooter games, such as their Donkey Kong Country series, and GoldenEye 007, Rare does not stick to a few specific video game genres. They have also developed several action-adventure games, including Star Fox Adventures and Kameo: Elements of Power, some fighting games such as the Killer Instinct series, some racing games, such as R.C. Pro-Am or Diddy Kong Racing, and some classic Beat 'em up/Shoot 'em up games such as Battletoads, Jetpac Refuelled and Captain Skyhawk, among others. Additionally, as Rare has usually been tied to a company that manufactures a video game console (e.g. Nintendo and Microsoft), most of their titles have been developed solely for a particular platform. Rare now focuses on the Kinect device, with their latest game, Kinect Sports, released in 2010 and the sequel Kinect Sports: Season Two released a year later.
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