Banjo-Kazooie. Perfect Dark. Jet Force Gemini. If you owned a Nintendo 64, these select Rare-developed titles might stand out as some of the best on the platform. The company had a knack for producing tight games with some serious character, but the studio has been assigned to building less-interesting Kinect titles ever since being picked up by Microsoft. Speaking to GameSpot, Rare explained that while you might think you want new versions of these classic N64 franchises, it’s the new ideas that are really going to be worth the company’s time.
"We're not going to go and remake the same game, which I think when people comment is what they say they want,” Rare boss Craig Duncan said. “I'm not sure it's really what they want.”
Whether bringing back some of these old names is viable is yet to be seen, since much of the desire might be too deeply rooted in nostalgia. However, what Duncan does promise is that Rare has plenty of ideas that will come to fruition on the Xbox One.
"We've always got things bubbling," Duncan continued. "We've always got a level of things at a concept phase. The key thing is when do we get it from what we call labs to something that's in incubation? And even then it still may not ever see the light of day. We might create a prototype and then kill it because it's not good enough.
"The key question is: what's Rare going to release next? We've always got a number of ideas there, and it's just aligning the right one to the right console opportunity, to the right market opportunity."