Original Banjo-Kazooie Devs Aren't Sure if 'the Audience is There' for a New Game - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 August 2023 / 3,873 Views
Some of the key developers on the original Banjo-Kazooie in an interview with VideoGamesChronicle said they aren't sure if the audience is even there anymore for a new entry in the franchise.
"I feel like you’d have to get a team with the humour that we had back then, and that’s hard to replicate," said composer Grant Kirkhope. "I think Rare would be open to somebody if they found the right team, but I don’t feel like that team exists. Also, I’m not convinced the audience is there either… I don’t feel like there are that many Banjo fans out there.
"The whole Smash Bros. thing was spectacular… it really was. I think all the team that worked on that game had a tear in their eye when Banjo turned up in Smash Bros… it was just an unbelievable release of emotion. Seeing all those [fans] crying on videos was heart-warming, and we all felt it. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event when that happened.
"But I still feel like, is there that multimillion-dollar thing within Banjo-Kazooie? I’m not convinced there is."
Kirkhope added, "I do sometimes feel that we exist in a kind of Banjo-Kazooie bubble, where it sounds like a great big noise, but how big that bubble is, I don’t know… outside of that bubble, how big is that audience?"
Lead programmer Chris Sutherland agreed with Kirkhope saying, "For a long time, there was doubt whether there was any audience for that type of game. Of course, there’s some audience, but is there enough to justify the kind of scale of game you would need now [for a first-party title]?
"Obviously, Nintendo does well with their platformers, but that’s Nintendo, and they’re often the exception to the rule. That’s the big question. The characters themselves, like we’ve seen with Smash Bros., people have a love for them. But do they love that game? And if you made a different kind of game, would you be back to a Nuts ‘n’ Bolts thing, where it wasn’t what they were expecting? I’m still hopeful that something will appear, and we’ll all be proved wrong."
Character Designer Steve Mayles said the best way to bring back Banjo-Kazooie would be to do a modern remaster as it would help keep costs down and gauge the potential interest in the franchise.
"I’ve said before, that would be the way to do it… because obviously, it takes so much money to create a brand new, top-end game that the sensible thing to do would be some kind of remaster to test the water and see if the audience is there," said Mayles. "But importantly, I think it would have to come out on a Nintendo platform as well."
Kirkhope thinks Ubisoft Milan, the studio who has worked on the Mario + Rabbids games, "would make a great Banjo game. I’ve said it to them a couple of times. I really feel like they’ve got that passion that we had back in the day at Rare. I didn’t think I’d meet anybody that had that passion, but I really feel they have."
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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im sure if BK3 or remake is done correctly will be amazing and sell to young and older audiences
Are we sure the audience isn't on Xbox and/or PC? To my knowledge, games like the Crash/Spyro HD trilogies, 3D Sonic, Hat in Time, and Psychonauts have done reasonably well on these platforms.
Unfortunately his right. These type of playformers have become niche, aswell as the original games didnt sell extremly well either for the time. They reviewed great but sales didn't add up.
I want a Banjo Threeie however not suprised there is low interests with Devs.
If they're so niche then why did Super Mario Odyssey do so well?
Mario is always the exception to the rule. 3D platformers have been on decline for years.
I never fully understood why though.
11% of N64 gamers purchased Banjo Kazooie 3.65 million sold on the 32.93 million consoles
Now compare that to todays 3D playformers excluding Mario. Software by hardware sales and look at the decline.
I get the feeling this is precisely why Xbox hasn't greenlit a new Banjo, even after years of fans begging for it. The number crunchers likely did a market analysis, looked at the sales of games like Yooka Laylee, and decided that the audience just isn't large enough for a viable release, not as an Xbox/PC only release, and maybe not even if Xbox does a late port on Switch/Switch 2 like they did with Ori and such. This could simply be one of those cases where a small, but very passionate fanbase makes the sales potential for a series look bigger than it is.
Then again, maybe it's just that modern Rare doesn't think they can make a satisfactory 3rd game or remake of the first two, and Xbox also haven't been able to find an indie studio they feel can do the series justice either, like Kirkhope was saying here.
Basing it off Yooka Laylee sales is like comparing some random indie platformer to Mario.
Unfortunately Rare have been repeating this line since 2001 which is why we got Nuts & Bolts instead of a traditional sequel. There's a perfect solid space for a brilliant platformer, and it's not just Nintendo who have found success in the space but also Sony. It takes 2 has also passed 10m in sales and that's probably the most Banjo like platformer we've had recently. Above all the production costs of a 3D platformer in the vein of Banjo will be a fraction of all of MS' other titles that are having their production reset twice over and taking 7 years to complete.
There is the added difficulty that MS's audience is not seemingly as interested in niche genres as Sony and Nintendo's but that's also why MS is lacking in userbase compared to the other 2, their core offerings aren't as diverse or well rated. They have to consistently be offering that and promoting it to draw in even wider audience
I have to disagree that Xbox covers less niche genres than Sony and Nintendo. They have the most diverse 1st party lineup of the 3 of them, they have studios now that cover first person shooters (Halo, Perfect Dark, Doom/Quake), third person shooters (Gears), action-adventure (Indiana Jones, South of Midnight, Sea of Thieves), survival horror (State of Decay 3), psychological horror (Project Mara), survival (Grounded), real time strategy (Age of Empires), sandbox (Minecraft), adventure games (Pentiment, Double Fine also love to make adventure games though they don't currently have one announced), racing sim (Forza Motorsport), simcade racing (Forza Horizon), western role playing games (Starfield, Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, Clockwork Revolution), and more. If you do into their 2nd party line-up they cover even more genres including Flight Sim and dungeon crawler. They are lacking in 3 key genres currently, those being Japanese role playing games, fighting, and platformers, but overall they still have the most diverse 1st party lineup of the 3 console makers. If they were to cover those 3 gaps properly with some more acquisitions or new teams/studios being created, they would easily have the most diverse line-up of the bunch.
If the Activision deal does end up getting approved, they will cover one of those 3 missing genres, platformers, as they would gain the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro IP's in addition to the Banjo and Conker IP's they already own, and they would gain studios with the platformer development experience needed to develop those 4 platformer IP's, namely Toys for Bob and Beenox. Phil Spencer already indicated plans to take CoD off of it's yearly release cycle so that it wouldn't take literally every Activision studio working on CoD in order to keep up that yearly release schedule, which would free up Beenox and Toys for Bob to go back to making platformers.
They don't have party games, life-sim games, board games, kart racers, sports games, rail shooters, fitness games, strategy RPGs and non RPG turn based strategy games on top of the three genres you mentioned. Not sure wether they have any straight up action games like Astral Chain and Bayonetta. Do they have puzzle games?
Nintendo has all of these genres covered plus most of the ones that Xbox has that you mentioned. These genres also have further diversification that Nintendo has mostly covered with 2D and 3D platformers and fighters and ARPGS and turn based RPGs.
They also have franchises from other genres that just didn't get an entry on Switch like rhythm, flight sim and futuristic racing games.
I was specifically referring to core genres that they are missing, most of what you list there are sub-genres or relatively niche genres. I was indeed missing sports, but honestly Xbox doesn't really need that at all, not when they have EA on Gamepass Ultimate. It's too difficult and expensive to get any of the licensed sports at this point, and they have no characters really that would be suitable for an arcade sports game like the Mario Sports stuff Nintendo does.
You're moving the goal posts. You never mentioned anything about "core genres".
Most of the genres you mentioned are sub-genres or niche. And didn't you make your comment specifically to say that Xbox first party games cover more niche genres than Sony and Nintendo and their line-up is more diverse? Because that's what the first sentence in your previous comment sounds like. Nintendo's first party line-up features most of the genres you listed plus more than a dozen more. But Xbox still has a more diverse line-up because specific genres don't matter and you are apparently the one who chooses which ones those are.
So first they supposedly cover more genres and are more diverse than Nintendo, but then suddenly you move the goal posts and say that most of the genres that Nintendo covers and they don't, don't actually matter.
Psychological horror and survival horror; racing sim and simcade racing; FPS and TPS; WRPGs. All sub-genres. Since when is psychological horror more relevant and more of a "core genre" than party games for example?
Why are you moving the goal posts? You never said "core genres" and you definitely need to define what that even is before you just exclude party games and life sims, two huge genres from your "core genres" and just ignore them. They are bigger than JRPGs for example but JRPGs are a "core genre" and Animal Crossing apparently doesn't matter.
You seem to be extremely biased.
I think you are conflating 2 separate talking points from my post into one. I wasn't saying that Xbox isn't already covering some of the more niche genres, and I wasn't saying that Xbox shouldn't cover other niche genres in addition to the ones they already cover. I'm saying that they already cover alot of the more niche genres and sub-genres, and that most Xbox fans feel they are only lacking 3 key genres in their first party lineup at this point. I've spoken to quite a few Xbox fans about what genres they feel Xbox is lacking on their 1st/2nd party, and the general consensus has been that those 3, JRPG, platformer, and fighting, are the main 3 that Xbox needs to cover with future acquisitions or from the ground up studios. There simply isn't alot of demand for party game exclusives on Xbox, as Xbox fans are plenty happy just playing the 3rd party "party" games that come to Gamepass like the Jackbox Party Packs and the upcoming Party Animals. Same goes for life sims, there just isn't alot of demand for Xbox to make them, aside from a somewhat smaller segment of the fanbase that wants Xbox to revive Viva Pinata. Same for sports, I just haven't seen many Xbox fans asking for Xbox to make sports exclusives, many who aren't a fan of sports games instead feel that Xbox making them would be a waste of resources. I have seen some that want Xbox to make a multi-IP Kart Racer or brawler, myself included, but for every fan who wants to see those, there is another who isn't a fan of the idea, they think it would be seen as just a cheap Mario Kart clone or cheap Smash clone.
Anyway, my main point is Xbox already has a ton of genre variety. Off the top of my head I can think of an Xbox 1st or 2nd party exclusive in the last 6 years or so that covered about 16 different genres or sub-genres, and if I go back just a few years more I can think of 18 genres/sub genres they have covered. Sony certainly hasn't covered anywhere near that many with there 1st and 2nd party in the same timeframe, as about 70% of their 1st party makes cinematic, story drive action-adventure games. They have maybe covered 10 genres between 1st and 2nd party in the same timeframe. I'm not familiar enough with Nintendo's exclusive lineup to give you any sort of definitive number for how many genres their 1st and 2nd party have covered in recent years, but my rough estimate comes up with about 14-15 genres and sub-genres covered by them. But as I said, I'm not as familiar with their exclusive lineup as Xbox's or Sony's because I mainly only like Pokémon, Fire Emblem, and Xeno from Nintendo. It's possible I'm forgetting some 1st and 2nd party Switch exclusives from other genres.
That's exactly it. You just forgot about many Nintendo games. From the genres we both listed I counted 20 that Nintendo covered on the Switch (I forgot about a certain rhythm game, which means that genre is also covered). And I didn't even mention a few more.
FPS: Metroid Prime Remastered
TPS: Splatoon 2, 3
Action-Adventure: BotW, TotK, Link's Awakening, Skyward Sword, Luigi's Mansion 3, Metroid Dread, Bayonetta Origins
Action: Astral Chain, Bayonetta trilogy, The Strechers
Hack and Slash: Warriors
Adventure: Famicom Detective Club, Buddy Mission Bond, Detective Pikachu Returns
Party: Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, 1-2 Switch, Everybody 1-2 Switch, WarioWare: Get It Together!, WarioWare: Move It!, Big Brain Academy
Puzzle: Captain Toad, Snipperclips, Good Job!, Sushi Stricker, Part Time UFO, Boxboy + Boxgirl, Tetris 99
Strategy: Advance Wars 1+2
RTS: Pikmin 1-4
SRPG: Fire Emblem TH, Fire Emblem Engage
ARPG: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy
Turn based JRPG: Pokémon, Paper Mario TOK, Super Mario RPG, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Miitopia
2D Platformer: NSMBUD, Super Mario Maker 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Kirby Star Allies, Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe, Yoshi's Crafted World, DKC Tropical Freeze
3D Platformer: SMO, SM3DW+BF, Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Board game: Clubhouse Games, Flip Wars
Kart Racing: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Kart Live
other Racing game: Kirby's Dream Buffet
Fitness: Ring Fit Adventure, Fitness Boxing, Fitness Boxing 2
Sports: Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Golf: Super Rush, Mario Strikers: Battle League, Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario & Sonic
Life Sim: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Dungeon Crawler: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
2D Fighting: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Kirby Fighters 2, Super Kirby Clash
3D/Arena Fighting: Pókken Tournament DX, Arms
Rhythm: Cadence of Hyrule
Railshooter: New Pokémon Snap
Learning game: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, Game Builder Garage
I count 27 genres (and that's just on Switch) with some of them having a large variety in different games, like SMM2 not being just another 2D platformer and Yoshi leaning more into puzzle platforming or Link's Awakening being in top down 2D and Metroid Dread side scrolling but both are technically action-adventure games.
If you just want to talk about "core genres" then idgaf. But counting the entire library Nintendo has a larger variety. Would be weird if it didn't since Nintendo release way more games than Microsoft.
Notable absent genres would be farming sims (Animal Crossing has some elements from that), management sims, racing sims, flight sims, anything horror related. FPS isn't strongly represented.
Fair enough, like I said, I'm not overly familiar with Nintendo's exclusive line-up because they release alot of smaller exclusives that are more single A in size, far too many for a casual Nintendo fan to keep track of in their head. Some of the ones you listed there are games I've never even heard of, because I usually just peruse the Nintendo direct announces afterwards instead of watching live, and only view the trailers for games that interest me. You are right then, Nintendo does cover more genres on 1st and 2nd party than Xbox, I agree now that I see your list.
Either way, Otter was saying that Xbox offerings are the least diverse of the 3, which was why I disagreed with him to start with, and he was indeed wrong there, Xbox covers more genres than Sony does. Over the the course of the last 6 or so years, plus in-development 1st and 2nd party titles we know about, Xbox has covered first person shooter, third person shooter, action-adventure, adventure, action, simulation racing, simcade racing (a hybrid of simulation racing and arcade racing), first person action RPG, third person action RPG, dungeon crawler, simulation, real time strategy, turn based strategy, platformer, survival horror, survival, psychological horror, MOBA, sandbox, and beat 'em up. That is 20 genres and sub genres by my count. If you go back a few years more you can get to about 24-25 for Xbox, but considering they no longer own a few of those developers, and considering they aren't actively working on some of those genres these days, I'll stick with the 20 genres and sub genres they have released in the last 6 or so years and those known to be in development. Sony by comparison has covered roughly 15-16 genres and sub-genres in the same timeframe based on the list I was just looking at.
Alot of of people have it in their head still that Xbox is still just a dudebro shooter box like they thought it was 12 or 13 years ago, when that really couldn't be further from the truth, these days it's a platform with alot of genre variety. Xbox has put alot of work into improving there genre variety, especially after they began their acquisition spree in 2017.
Look at it more like this... If we look at the last decade of MS I can't recall a single platform/adventure game they've actually developed and promoted besides Ori.
Sony: Astrobot, Ratchet and Clank, Dreams, Tearaway, SackBoy, Knack, Little Big Planet 3, Gravity Rush
Microsoft simply buying a dozen studios in a year and putting their games on gamepass doesn't really bridge their audience to these wider titles
What I don't get with a lot of these projects with hardcore devoted fanbases (F-Zero, Mother, Mega Man Legends, Power Stone), could they just not work on smaller scale titles for those fanbases?
We see indie titles all the time built on small budgets for presumably niche audiences. If you gave a small team who really likes the franchises a modest budget could they not make something that would make the fans happy and put a few bucks in your pocket at the same time? You could farm it out and not even have to really use your own resources.
In a world where A Hat in Time has sold over a million copies, I don't see how Microsoft couldn't make a profitable Banjo Kazooie game, even if it's not going to be something on the scale of Mario Odyssey. Maybe it's just too small potatoes for them to bother,.
- Too small to bother
- Lack of interest in making it (or like this dude said, no team is capable enough to make it)
-
Lack of human resources
3 pretty much makes sense for Nintendo as they only have 6000ish employees, and constantly releases new good games from different franchise. Would be great if they could find a Mercury Steam kinda situation but not easy to contract. Not sure about Microsoft because they have ton of employees. I think 2 is the strongest here for Microsoft, 1 just makes it so the priority is low (like Pikmin 4), games like Hi-Fi rush are still published by Microsoft so I doubt 1 is an issue.
"If you build it, they will come"
I don't think it's feasible, but maybe the best alternative would be if the IP was sold to someone interested in doing something with it.
Basically it needs to be on Nintendo, not Xbox.
You haven't given it a real chance in over 20 years for us to prove you wrong. License it out to Playtonic if you don't want to give fans what they want.
After how Yooka Laylee turned out I have no faith that Playtonic would make a good Banjo Kazooie game sadly.
Can't say for certain without testing the waters.
Its not like Xbox hasn't had success with platforms. Ori 1&2, Psychonauts 2, Cuphead, and Rare Replay were successful and popular. Game Pass is also the perfect platform for games like this. Rare has said they don't want to go back to their own IPs so it would have to be a different studio like they did with Killer Instinct.
Xbox should do a proper remake of the first 2 games if they find a studio willing.
Theres only one way to find out!
"But I still feel like, is there that multimillion-dollar thing within Banjo-Kazooie? I’m not convinced there is."
I think that line of thought is the problem. If there is not the audience for a big game, why not do a small one like Yooka-Laylee? No need to break the bank. Microsoft proved it can do smaller stuff within their studios with Pentiment and Hifi-Rush. So why not a smaller scale Banjo-project?
it makes no difference to me. I don´t like 3d adventure games like: Banjo, Mario 3d, Zelda, Donkey Kong 3d, Glover, Gex 3d, Billy Hatcher, Sonic 3d, Croc.......This kind of game is boring. I prefer sleep. And no problem you can negative me...nooooo problem! Boring!
At the very least they should remake the OG Title
I dont think the audience is on Xbox or PC.
Its no comparison because Mario is popular on Nintendo systems and Banjo is not on Xbox. They could still give it a go, but Im guessing they would rather make 4 Forza games in the time it would take to make one Banjo game. Lets just face it, its like COD will never be a smash hit on Nintendo consoles either. They just have different audiences.
There are certain genres, such as JRPGs, where Microsoft and other publishers have tried for years to build up an audience and it hasn't happened.
Yeah but other than Nintendo, which all these devs worked almost exclusively with Nintendo, platformers don’t really exist anymore outside of the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro remakes and Crash 4. Even on PlayStation. Xbox funded Double Fine for 2 years after acquiring them and published Psychonauts 2 and it did incredibly well on Xbox. Idk about PC. These devs are looking through a vary narrow view as Grants latest work in particular was Mario + Rabbids and he did incredible work during the N64 era of games as well. So of course, he’s very familiar with Nintendo and platformers.
I would love to see a proper remake of Banjo-Kazooie, but Rare are busy and Double Fine are busy with other projects, so idk who would even make the game. I hope it is something that eventually happens.
Knack, LBP, Astrobot, Sackboy and R&C have performed fairly well on PS.
Knack was a flop, sold well due to launch title hype. R&C latest outing sold 1.1m copies, Astrobot and Sackboy i would bet isnt fairing much better.
3D platformers dont sell well anymore. Unless its Mario. Heck Sonys own Rift Apart only sold 1.1m... on a heavy userbase.
That is true. So MS better just stick to what the majority of the userbase wants. They should encourage their studios to create new experiences to draw in new players of course. Its just important that the developers are passionate about what they make. So like Grant Kirkhope says, I doubt many Xbox developers or fans care much about a 25 year old N64 game.
Maaaaaaaan, shut up xD
