Rare on Revolution Virtual Console: No.

[GFLPraxis]

http://www.nintendoplayers.com/article.php?articleID=179

:(


No Rare on Revolution's Virtual Console
According to sources from the GDC last week.
by Robert Hiskey

March 28, 2006 - Over the weekend, Matt Cassamassina of IGN Revolution (and IGN Cube) posted in his blog that he had talked to some "Rare / Microsoft people" who confirmed to him that Rare's classic titles will not appear on the Revolution's Virtual Console. That means no Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and (gasp) GoldenEye 007 will NOT be downloadable for play on Revolution. The GoldenEye situation is a little different than the rest, as it needs approval from both Rare and Electronic Arts, who currently owns the rights to the James Bond franchise, in order to appear on the Virtual Console. While EA would likely give its approval, Rare will not.

Not all is lost, however. Rare-developed games to which Nintendo owns the rights will still appear on the Virtual Console. That means you can expect to see games like the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, and others. There are also a few franchises whose statuses are unknown (it is unclear whether Nintendo or Rare owns the rights), such as Blast Corps..

While it's certainly sad that we won't get all of our favorite Rare titles on the Virtual Console, it's not surprising, as Rare is now owned by Microsoft. It's not hard to imagine that Microsoft will offer Rare's games via Xbox Live Arcade in the future. Also worth noting is the rumor that Rare is in development with a new Banjo-Kazooie title for the Xbox 360.

Source: Matt-IGN's Blog

Crap... I'm happy Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3, and Donkey Kong 64 will be on there. Overjoyed in fact. But I never did get to play Banjo-Kazooie and wanted to try it. And a lot of people were looking forward to GoldenEye.

I wonder, though, since EA owns the franchise, if Nintendo could get EA to release it, perhaps Rare would have to...

[Haoshiro]

If you played DK64 then you pretty much know what the Banjo games are like. ;)

I had completely forgotten about Jet Force Gemini... would be cool to see a sequel on the 360 (as well as Banjo).

I do agree with Matt though, I can see Microsoft getting these released on Live, perhaps even around the Rev's launch date. It would also be interesting to see if MS tried to get MSX/MSX2 games on Live as well.

As far as GoldenEye, I'm quite certain both companies would have to agree, which is more likely to happen on Live then on Nintendo VC.

Most of the games I'm looking forward to on VC aren't Rare games, so this doesn't bother me too much. :)

[GFLPraxis]

I do agree with Matt though, I can see Microsoft getting these released on Live, perhaps even around the Rev's launch date. It would also be interesting to see if MS tried to get MSX/MSX2 games on Live as well.

I wonder how that would work though...
Would MS have them recoded for the 360?
Would they run on an emulator? If so, what would the legal situation be with selling a commercial game that emulates a competitor's system? I don't know if N64 games require any kind of a special BIOS (like Playstation games do).

But I too can see them being released on Live.

[hvfsl]

I wonder how that would work though...
Would MS have them recoded for the 360?
Would they run on an emulator? If so, what would the legal situation be with selling a commercial game that emulates a competitor's system? I don't know if N64 games require any kind of a special BIOS (like Playstation games do).

But I too can see them being released on Live.
They would have to recode the game engine to work on the X360 (since emulating the N64 would get them in all kinds of legal problems with Nintendo).

[Haoshiro]

I wonder how that would work though...
Would MS have them recoded for the 360?
Would they run on an emulator? If so, what would the legal situation be with selling a commercial game that emulates a competitor's system? I don't know if N64 games require any kind of a special BIOS (like Playstation games do).

But I too can see them being released on Live.

That is a good question and if it happened I'd think it would be via an emulator.

Remember, emulation is not illegal at all (commercial or otherwise) so long as it was created by means of lawful reverse-engineering. You might remember "bleem!cast" which was a commercial Playstation emulator for Dreamcast. Ultimately it failed because Sony sued "bleem!, inc." until they were bankrupted by lawyer fees; even though they never actually lost the case, iirc.

In the end it could still be a problem for Microsoft even if simply political. On the other hand, if they made a SNES and N64 emulator for the Rare games they would essentially get all at once.

As for the BIOS, no, one isn't needed. I believe the BIOS was required on the PSX emulators due to the CD-ROM drive, although there was at least one PSX emulator that did not require it.

[GFLPraxis]

That is a good question and if it happened I'd think it would be via an emulator.

Remember, emulation is not illegal at all (commercial or otherwise) so long as it was created by means of lawful reverse-engineering. You might remember "bleem!cast" which was a commercial Playstation emulator for Dreamcast. Ultimately it failed because Sony sued "bleem!, inc." until they were bankrupted by lawyer fees; even though they never actually lost the case, iirc.

In the end it could still be a problem for Microsoft even if simply political. On the other hand, if they made a SNES and N64 emulator for the Rare games they would essentially get all at once.

As for the BIOS, no, one isn't needed. I believe the BIOS was required on the PSX emulators due to the CD-ROM drive, although there was at least one PSX emulator that did not require it.

If no BIOS is needed then it is no problem, as emulating HARDWARE is perfectly legal. If they need any kind of software, they can't steal the code.
If you're right then that's no problem.

Then again, I don't think the issue has *truly* been addressed in courts. I'd imagine Nintendo has fully patented the hardware and design of the N64, unlike, say, VirtualPC which simply emulates generic x86 hardware. It'd be interesting to see if they could actually make a court case out of it.

[Haoshiro]

I'm not sure what you mean by "truly" but if you look at Bleemcast! on Answers.com (http://www.answers.com/bleemcast/) you can see that Sony never won any of the lawsuits against the company.

Personally I've been quite an emulation freak and ran a website on the subject (specfically, emulator "front-ends") for several years and knowing many people who were active on emulator projects. The only emulators I recall ever needing a BIOS for was PlayStation and Neo-Geo emulators.

[mikeyPotg]

thats sad to hear, especially when I think back on the old relationship they used to have with Nintendo. But the only games I'll miss are Perfect Dark and Goldeneye. I was never too huge into FPS's either, so... its cool.

At least Nintendo still has Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct (I think?)!

[GFLPraxis]

I'm not sure what you mean by "truly" but if you look at Bleemcast! on Answers.com (http://www.answers.com/bleemcast/) you can see that Sony never won any of the lawsuits against the company.

Personally I've been quite an emulation freak and ran a website on the subject (specfically, emulator "front-ends") for several years and knowing many people who were active on emulator projects. The only emulators I recall ever needing a BIOS for was PlayStation and Neo-Geo emulators.

Most interesting. By 'truly', like you said, Bleemcast simply couldn't afford to make an arguement, and no rulings were ever made. I'd be curious to see what happens if two large companies (Nintendo and Microsoft) brought the issue to court.

thats sad to hear, especially when I think back on the old relationship they used to have with Nintendo.

Well, most of the staff quit and Microsoft bought what was left of the company (essentially just the name). It's not the original Rare.



At least Nintendo still has Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct (I think?)!

Not sure about Killer Instinct, I'd *suspect* it was a Rare-owned IP, but I'm not sure.

[Counterfit]

Good thing I have a working N64. I love Perfect Dark.

[Dagless]

Aw. was looking forward to a smooth Perfect Dark (is it just me or does it feel like 10fps?). I didn't read the whole article. In a nutshell why are some Nintendo-published Rare games on the list (Donkey Kong etc) but not others? Don't nintendo own the publishing rights? pretty much;

Nintendo: So yea we're going to put Rare games on the Rev.
Rare: Hmm, we'd apprecia-
Nintendo: NO! Sell outs! We win. har har har.

alas :(

[rockthecasbah]

that is really lousy for the virtual console idea, when people think N64 most picture at least 1 Rare game. In my opinion, Rare really made the N64, other than 1st party games Rare's contributions were some of the best games and most memorable about the system... I mean let's face it, look at how many other GREAT games came out on that system, then how many of them were Rare products..:o

[GFLPraxis]

Aw. was looking forward to a smooth Perfect Dark (is it just me or does it feel like 10fps?). I didn't read the whole article. In a nutshell why are some Nintendo-published Rare games on the list (Donkey Kong etc) but not others? Don't nintendo own the publishing rights? pretty much;

Nintendo: So yea we're going to put Rare games on the Rev.
Rare: Hmm, we'd apprecia-
Nintendo: NO! Sell outs! We win. har har har.

alas :(

Why ask the question when you can take ten more seconds of reading the original post and have an answer? It says it in the second paragraph!

Games like Donkey Kong are the ones where Nintendo owns the IP, and Rare just developed it. Games like Banjo-Kazooie, Rare owns the IP, Nintendo just published it.

[Aarow]

Atleast Donkey Kong is going to be on this virtual console. I was scared before I read the article.

[ravenvii]

Aww. Goldeneye was friggin' awesome. The greatest FPS ever created in my personal opinion.

Banjo Kazooie was great too, beautiful graphics for the time. No urge to play it again though. I just want Goldeneye! The crap EA pushes out are no comparison at all.

[plinkoman]

this really pisses me off. i was looking forward to getting to try a bunch of games i'd never played before on the rev, but this pretty much takes care of the first 5 games on my list :mad: http://vwvortex.com/zeroforum_graphics/mad.gif http://www.vortexmediagroup.com/images/banghead.gif

[2nyRiggz]

What was the name of the fighting game that Rare(it had a skeleton character with a blade) made?..i really liked it....the game would shout out "combo Breaker!"..damn i won't be able to play it.

Edit: Killer Instinct...i think

Bless

[takao]

actually the legal situation of emulation isn't that clear ... i think ... especially since it varies from country to country ...

i guess Rare would have to do quite some recoding to offer it in the xbox marketplace and on top of that nobody here knows the wording of the publishing deals made back then between Rare and Nintendo ...

edit: and i'm not that sure if microsoft is going to risk a legal battle with nintendo over such an issue so it's back to recoding the games)

[GFLPraxis]

actually the legal situation of emulation isn't that clear ... i think ... especially since it varies from country to country ...


I know the legal situation of ROMS is more in question than emulation. In the United States, it is legal to make a backup of anything you own. Except it is then illegal to transfer that backup (thus, downloading roms is illegal, even if you own the game), so you'll have to backup the game yourself to legally play a rom. Plus, a second law (DCMA) states it is illegal to break the encryption/copy protection scheme, thus making it illegal to rip a lot of modern games even if your use is within 'fair use' provisions (like the Nintendo DS, those games are encrypted). And the big companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo claim that since the backup devices are used for piracy purposes, the devices themselves are illegal (but no court has backed this up yet) to use. Other countries have different laws.

I haven't heard much talk about whether emulation itself is legal. But that's because no company has tried to emulate a competitor's system, only people working in their mother's basements.

[takao]

I haven't heard much talk about whether emulation itself is legal. But that's because no company has tried to emulate a competitor's system, only people working in their mother's basements.

well i think the question is problematic (even more so in europe especially germany/austria where not only here haven't been a single case but also the laws are quite well fancy worded) .. i mean if they are emulating a n64 system then they are emulating a system which is actually still on sale in china (iQue) .. sure it's implemented there as as system-on-a-chip afaik but i think a lot of the n64 hardware design is still protected by patents etc. so what if you are implementing a system which simulates such a system ? how about the compilers/libraries etc. ?

that aside it needs to be rewritten anyway because of the controller which is pictured in the control configuration panels in the case of Goldeneye as far as i remember ;)
and every one of the games will pretty much end up with a different control layout mapping to the 360

[Dagless]

What was the name of the fighting game that Rare(it had a skeleton character with a blade) made?..i really liked it....the game would shout out "combo Breaker!"..damn i won't be able to play it.

Edit: Killer Instinct...i think

Bless

Definitely was Killer Instinct. I have that on my original GB. Top fighting game.

I was really looking forward to Jet Force Gemini, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark (would have played past the first level!). Blast Corps sounded pretty good.

And for the sake of anger; i now effin hate Microsoft. What a good move.

[Haoshiro]

Sure Microsoft bought Rare, but as I recall it was Nintendo who sold all of their shares in the company back to Rare so that they could.

Nintendo knew what was happening and didn't seem to mind, so I'm sure they also knew the consequences.

As of yet Rare has yet to really prove they were worth the money either.

Here's what they've done for Microsoft:
- Grabbed by Ghouls
- Conker Live & Reloaded
- Kameo
- Perfect Dark Zero

With exception of the Conker remake, which seemed to receive favorable reviews, all the games have been less then stunning.

And while I liked DK64 it really didn't seem very DK to me, not like the DKC series be any means.

[HiRez]

I'm going to be really bummed out if I can't play any Bond games on the Revolution. @#&* M$!

[mikeyPotg]

When I hear of companies jumping ship or anything like that, I always tend to forget that the workers make the company. Maybe part of the reason why Nintendo decided to "let go" of Rare and why Rare has yet to make a "Goldeneye-esque" game for 360 is that most of their talented folks left?

Just a thought. But I sure do miss seeing that Rare logo at the start of games. Brings back very fond memories of my SNES days.

[takao]

I'm going to be really bummed out if I can't play any Bond games on the Revolution. @#&* M$!


since EA is making the new Bond games i'm pretty sure we will se plenty bond games on the revolution ;) (how many were released for the gamecube ? 3 ? 4 ?)

but if any of them is actually a lot of fun is another matter

[jdechko]

since EA is making the new Bond games i'm pretty sure we will se plenty bond games on the revolution ;) (how many were released for the gamecube ? 3 ? 4 ?)

I think it was 5.

Agent Under Fire
NightFire
Everything Or Nothing
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
From Russia With Love.

but if any of them is actually a lot of fun is another matter

Yeah, I only bought Rogue Agent, it was different in that you had two weapons and could only have 2 weapons (except for some instances). But other than that, it was a typical FPS.