Microsoft working with Rare to determine what's next
Touring Rare's history is pretty great, considering the company's standouts include Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day and Banjo-Kazooie. After Microsoft purchased Rare, the studio still had a traditionally-controlled highlight in the Viva Piñata series, but Rare's more recent focus has been on supporting the Kinect with the Kinect Sports games. Now that Microsoft has conceded their Xbox One pack-in strategy for the peripheral, questions have arisen concerning Rare's next step as a studio, some of which were addressed in a Total Xbox interview with Phil Spencer, head of Xbox.
"They're in the process of evaluating what they want to do next, and we're working closely with them to see what their new project will be," Spencer said. "And I've also laughed when people have tried to use the word, what I 'force' them to do," he added, explaining that trying to force "independent-minded" studios like Rare to do something is "never a successful equation."
We're well aware that games need to be profitable and that a studio's team changes with time. However, if Rare isn't being forced to support the Kinect and we get another rough Kinect Sports game instead of a new Viva Piñata, we'll join the ranks of the Sour troublemakers and start wrecking havoc in the nearest garden.
[Image: Rare]
