Jez Corden has gone on record that Microsoft Gaming is not producing any Banjo Kazooie game.
He actually made this statement in a podcast recorded last week. The latest episode of the Xbox 2+1 podcast was with their guest Paris Lilly. Jez, Paris and Rand al Thor 19 talked about the possibility of Microsoft making a Banjo Kazooie game.
This is what Jez said verbatim:
“I don’t know about never, but I can tell you right now, categorically, there is no Banjo game in development as of this podcast, on the 26th of June, 2024.”
Talking about the Banjo Kazooie franchise later in the podcast, they also noted that Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was released all the way back in 2008. That means it’s been nearly two decades since we have seen a Banjo Kazooie game.
Indeed, after that long a period, and Microsoft not really making a successful Banjo Kazooie game of their own, the franchise is now still more closely associated to the Nintendo 64 than to Xbox, all these years later. The game has ended up in this strange situation where it doesn’t fit with where Microsoft is right now – but it’s not like they couldn’t make it happen.
Regardless of the struggles that Microsoft has had with Halo, it remains the signature franchise for the Xbox platform. Microsoft is now entering a new era where it is also the publisher of one of the biggest annualized game franchises in Call of Duty. But before that, they also made choices to make them one of the biggest third party studios in the world, when they acquired Mojang and its signature game, Minecraft.
One could make the argument that Minecraft is already Microsoft’s gateway to a new younger audience. In fact, it’s probably this rationale that is part of the reason that Microsoft has not gone back to look at making a Banjo Kazooie game. But Sony’s sudden decision to produce a 3D platformer in Astro Bot seems to suggest that this is a genre that the industry needs to get back into again.
In that scenario, Microsoft may see Sony challenging Nintendo’s domination in the 3D platformer genre, and want to follow suit. Nintendo has certainly been the most consistent in producing and developing games in the genre, and seen the most success after all these years. Between HAL’s Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Nintendo’s own Super Mario Odyssey, the company is unchallenged so far when it comes to critical and commercial success.
It’s also hard to miss that Astro Bot seems to be derivative of the collectathon gameplay that Rare popularized with Donkey Kong 64 and Banzo Kazooie. If the Rare supporting Sea of Thieves now really isn’t the studio to make that Banjo Kazooie revival, Microsoft should still look for that studio to make the revival happen. That studio could be Playtonic, or it could be a reliable old hand like Sumo Digital. But whoever it is, Banjo Kazooie are waiting, and they will still show up if Microsoft gets this right.
