14 DAY TRIAL // Phil Tossell, a former employee of developer Rare, says that when the developer was acquired by Microsoft, a clash of organizational cultures quickly followed and led to changes that resulted in the loss of its creative spark.
He is quoted by Destructoid as saying that, “I think most of the people who worked at Rare at the time were Nintendo fans and we loved working closely with Nintendo. Rare was also a close knit family and so it was something of a shock to suddenly become part of such a huge organization as Microsoft.”
Initially, Rare was unaware of the diverging cultures, but a number of staff left because of them and soon the company began to feel more like a Microsoft studio than an original developer.
Tossell adds, “While Rare continues to put out high quality games, for me it lost some of the spark that had made the company special.”
The former employee says that now Rare is an interesting studio that can create high-profile video game experiences for the Xbox One, the next-gen device from Microsoft.
Since it was acquired, Rare has only created Kinect Sports titles, which have been well received by the community but failed to satisfy longtime fans.
They still remember the time when the team delivered experiences like Donkey Kong, Starfox or Perfect Dark.
All the games were delivered on Nintendo-made hardware and Rare was even partly owned by the Japanese company.
Kinect Sports Rivals is the new title that Rare is working on for the Xbox One.
The hardware platform has a new and improved Kinect sensor that is more accurate and can power more complex motion-tracking-powered gameplay.
Microsoft has confirmed that sports like football, bowling, racing on a jet-sky, rock climbing, target shooting and tennis are included in Kinect Sports Rivals.