Chris and Tim Stamper, have left Rare Ltd but not due to any bad sales figures on their latest title, Viva Pinata. 1up.com quoted Rare:
"Chris and Tim have helped shape Rare into the world-renowned development studio that is it today and their impact on the videogame industry as a whole is well known. They are simply leaving to pursue other opportunities and we wish them luck in their future endeavors."
What makes these guys so special? Considering some of the projects their little company worked on, we can see just how fundamental they were to our industry, games like:
- Battletoads
- Donkey Kong Country (and sequels)
- Starfox Adventures
- Donkey Kong 64
- Golden Eye 007
- Perfect Dark
- Banjo-Kazooie
"Its games have always employed some of the latest graphics technology. One of its most critically acclaimed and popular series was the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, due to its use of pre-framed 3D graphics on a 2D console. GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is considered by many to be their biggest success, known even today as one of the gold standards for console first-person shooters, eventually selling 7.8 million copies. Rareware's Killer Instinct added several features to the fighting game genre such as autodouble combos, combo linkers and ultra combos." --wikipedia
Four years ago Microsoft purchased Rare Ltd from Nintendo, since then they've created a few Xbox 360 games: Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero and Viva Pinata along with a few original Xbox titles. None of the titles have had the same impact as those "back in the day" but many will agree that Viva Pinata didn't get its time to shine because of Gears of War and other launch titles situated on the same dates.
Perhaps these two will found another budding game development company and produce the next hit games for all console platforms.
source: 1up.com
