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Activision Almost Acquired Rare in 2002

Activision Almost Acquired Rare in 2002 - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 28 June 2016 / 10,459 Views

Activision nearly acquired Rare in 2002 by outbidding Microsoft. It turned into a bidding war and in the end Microsoft was able to win.

"So we put in a bid and then Activision outbid us, and it looked like we were going to lose the deal," Xbox co-creator Ed Fries told IGN

 

"And then at the very last minute Robbie increased our bid and we won the deal. And that was it. Who knows what could have happened with Rare."

Rare is currently developing Sea of Thieves for the Xbox One and Windows PC.


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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24 Comments
jason1637 (on 28 June 2016)

I'm happy that MS acquired Rare.

  • +6
Johnw1104 jason1637 (on 28 June 2016)

Just curious... why? lol

  • +4
jason1637 jason1637 (on 28 June 2016)

Viva pinata was an addicting x360 game. Also Rare today is in really good shape after Rare Replay and the upcoming Sea of thieves. There's also rumors

  • +1
Nem jason1637 (on 28 June 2016)

I hope you are right, but i Microsoft did its number on them for the longest time aswell.

  • 0
mountaindewslave jason1637 (on 28 June 2016)

yikes, Rare has been pretty bad off since then. Not that it's totally Microsoft's fault, they acquired the company after part of the employees had already broken away anyway

  • +1
Johnw1104 jason1637 (on 29 June 2016)

Didn't care for Viva Pinata but it seemed unique and reviewed well. Otherwise, I'd say Rare under microsoft has been a disaster, and people are SERIOUSLY jumping the gun on "Rare is back" with some fairly basic gameplay footage of their Pirate game. Seriously, they've barely showed anything... I HOPE it's good, but all we've seen were a couple of staged ship v ship combat sessions which were less impressive than the experiences I had in Darkfall Online years ago.

  • 0
AlfredoTurkey (on 28 June 2016)

Pre-Microsoft acquisition (Battletoads, 007, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie 1/2, DK64,Killer Instinct, DKC1,2,3,Conker etc.) Post-Microsoft acquisition (Grabbed by the ghoulies, Kameo, Viva Piñata and Kinect games). You be the judge.

  • +5
Zarkho AlfredoTurkey (on 28 June 2016)

Don't forget Jet Force Gemini ;)

  • +2
Ganoncrotch AlfredoTurkey (on 29 June 2016)

and ITS MR PANTS.

  • 0
Mr Puggsly (on 28 June 2016)

Oh man, even if you dislike Rare under MS that could have been much worse.

However, some games would have sold better as multiplat. Especially on the original Wii.

  • +5
Salnax (on 28 June 2016)

Instead having no new Banjo-Kazooie games, we'd have been sick of the series after the eighth iteration.

  • +4
Johnw1104 (on 28 June 2016)

Nintendo definitely sold high on that one; Rare had people leaving and Nintendo got peak value for 'em.

  • +4
Ganoncrotch Johnw1104 (on 28 June 2016)

who knows tho if they had been kept on with Nintendo maybe then rare could have done more with the established franchises rather than going off doing things like pirates ,grabbed by the ghoulies, Kameo and Viva Pinata.

  • 0
Azzanation (on 29 June 2016)

Glad they went to MS over Activision

  • +3
NightDragon83 (on 28 June 2016)

Wouldn't have mattered anyway, as most of the core staff at Rare was gone by 2002. We might have gotten a couple different games out of them, but their output still wouldn't have been anywhere near the golden age of the N64 days. My biggest problem with how M$ has handled Rare for the past decade is they have been sitting on all these IPs not doing anything with them... took over a decade to finally get a decent KI game!

  • +2
malistix1985 (on 28 June 2016)

LoL, well Microsoft ruined Rare, I'm pretty sure Activision would have done the same, they where on their best with Nintendo, sad those days ended.

  • +1
jason1637 malistix1985 (on 28 June 2016)

Rare had some good games when MS aquired them but not anything like they had on the N64, At keast MS is using them well now.

  • +1
Goatseye malistix1985 (on 28 June 2016)

Nintendo is the reason Rare crumbled in late 90's and early 2000. Before they used to have hands off and they never "ran" Rare. Rare was an independent contractor.

  • +1

Goats eye that's entirely not true. Nintendo gave Rare huge freedom throughout their ENTIRE relationship. ask yourself a serious question- if Nintendo's conservative top members had been totally dogmatic how would Conker's Bad Fury Day or Perfect Dark have ever been pushed forward? both extremely adult/mature, in different ways

Nintendo didn't kill Rare, Rare suffocated under the weight of things after they lost roughly half of their employees (left to go start a new studio) and were already losing their way a lot (look at Starfox Adventures for gods sake)

  • 0
Jon-Erich (on 29 June 2016)

I think Microsoft acquiring Rare was one of the greatest tragedies of the video game industry. Microsoft was still new to the industry and was still learning things. Microsoft also never seemed to understand what made the Nintendo/Rare relationship work so well and never knew how to market Rare's games. I think they might have been better off with Activision. At least then, they could still have worked on Nintendo consoles and all those games Rare had in development for GameCube would not have needed to have been cancelled. That being said, a few things need to be mentioned. First, a lot of people say most of Rare's talent left by the time of the acquisition. That isn't true. A lot of people did leave, but most of those people were the ones who worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Most of the Donkey Kong Country/Banjo team was still there. The Killer Instinct/Conker team was still there. So there was plenty of talent. Second, even if Nintendo had purchased the remaining 51% of Rare, there still would have been growing pains. Rare was an understaffed studio at a time when games were becoming more expensive to make and larger teams were needed. So there still would have been a rough transition similar to what we saw with Retro Studios in the early 2000's. That's probably why Nintendo didn't purchase Rare. They probably felt that despite Rare's success, the Stampers were asking for way too much given the amount of investment that would have been needed. Thirdly, I remember reading something where Microsoft did outbid Activision but the Stampers were going to go with Activision anyway and something unknown occurred at the 11th hour that caused the deal to fall through and that's when Microsoft's bid was accepted.

  • 0
zedo0 (on 29 June 2016)

Activision would have just lost lots of cash on a has been developer. They dodged a bullet.

  • -1
hush404 (on 29 June 2016)

Maybe if Activision had acquired them we could have gotten some decent games? Microsoft really hasn't done anything with Rare or it's IPs.

  • -2
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