I feel like the decision to make it a Star Fox game HAD to happen far earlier than any acquisition. Rare had multiple games in development for GameCube, so I don't buy the theory that at some point at the end of the N64's life when Saber became Fox McCloud, it had anything to do with Microsoft or a buyout. It probably had more to do with a lack of faith in another anthropomorphic adventure and new IP at that, especially after Conker and Perfect Dark didn't sell sensationally well.
People always run wild with the conspiracy nonsense regarding the retooling from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures, but Kevin Bayliss's account makes it sound much more like a simple offer made to avoid brand confusion and redundancy than anything else. Plus, I just don't see what's so special about Dinosaur Planet that it would compel Nintendo to try and lock it down specifically while letting the rest of Rare leave to Microsoft (or Activision since they were also bidding for them during this period). I also doubt that the sales of PD or Conker had anything to do with it since when the decision was made (roughly summer-fall 2000) PD had only been out for a couple of months (and would still be one of the best-selling late-releases for N64 when all was said and done) and Conker was still months from release (and was pretty much deliberately sabotaged by Nintendo themselves due to fears of what publishing such a vulgar take on the cute animal platformer could do to their image).
It doesn't make sense with Fox already replacing Sabre in the N64 version of the game. That implies that Nintendo and RARE had already made the decision to put Fox in the game before the company was sold, and before the game was moved to the GameCube.
Also, if I remember correctly, the Stamper Bros approached Nintendo first in regards to buying RARE and Nintendo passed (they honestly should have bought them, and I think that's a lesson they learned with a company like Next Level), so they went in search of another buyer, and Microsoft stepped up.
Just to back up what I said with some actual facts:
Most of Rare's own junior staff members began hearing rumors of a buyout as early as 1999, as the N64 was a disappointment to Nintendo, and the GameCube didn't look like "
it was going to change their fortunes", according to Justin Cook, who was working in the testing department of the British developer, at the time.
Martin Hollis, then head of software at Rare and director of GoldenEye 007, said that his company had been looking for buyers for "several years" (at least two) prior to the beginning of discussions with Microsoft.
Nintendo had a 49 percent stake in Rare, and the priority option to buy the remaining 51 percent at the same price as any interested party's bid. Cook claims Activision were in "substantial dealing" with Rare even before Microsoft showed up as a potential buyer, but backed out at the last minute, for unknown reasons.
Yamauchi (Nintendo's late president) "declined to offer more than a fraction of the value Rare was asking; shrewdly, it would seem", as per Hollis, and Microsoft, who "didn't even crop up as a potential buyer until late in the day", as stated by Cook, stepped in putting in a high price. In the words of Ed Fries, then vice president of game publishing at MS, if they drove a hard bargain, Ninty "
would have the chance to buy at that low price and probably would".
Regarding Dinosaur Planet, which was supposed to have had a huge showing at E3 2000, in May of that year, we know from
Kev Bayliss' recent opinion piece that the plan changed after they arrived in LA for the event: "We were told that we were going to keep a lot of our work under wraps because we had a meeting scheduled with Nintendo to discuss the demo". And when someone owns half of your company, it's not like you can go against what they tell you to do.
Bayliss continues:
Apparently, NCL were very impressed with what they had seen of the game and so during the show we met and discussed the possibility of a 'marriage' between the "Star Fox" and "Dinosaur Planet" IPs to create something really special. The idea was to create Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet (as it was initially known) for the N64, but of course we eventually ended up transferring to GameCube as that platform released.
Ninty had clearly already seen some of Dino Planet and were so impressed by it that I'm sure the change was already being proposed in Japan. In fact, Miyamoto himself already had a title in mind by the time he and Aonuma had an
interview with IGN, on June 6, 2000:
IGN64: What do you think of Rare's lineup at the show? How about Dinosaur Planet?
Miyamoto: It looks really nice, doesn't it? I wish they would use Star Fox characters so that they could use the title Star Fox Adventures. Maybe I should call the team and talk about it [laughs].
The earliest report of the rebranding only came in
March of 2001, by way of French GameCube site Consoles France.
Bayliss' sketch of the logo still had the "Dinosaur Planet" subtitle, but even that was dropped (no plans of developing the series into a franchise, maybe?).
Also, after all that went down, SFA was supposed to be a launch title for the GC, being delayed much later into development. And I can't shake off my mind the notion that Microsoft announcing their acquisition of Rare literally on the day after the game was released wasn't a coincidence.
This is all just speculation, of course, even to this day. But it's fun to find new pieces of this puzzle two decades after the fact. :)
I wish that too. John is at his best when doing retro projects or even when streaming with Audie or My Life In Gaming. Realistically though, we know those channels tend not to have much of an audience.
Agreed. Even though I still play the latest releases, I can't be bothered with DF's "analyses" anymore. I basically only watch John's videos. Retro channels (like MLiG, Modern Vintage Gamer and LGR), on the other hand, are my absolute jam, and it's a shame they don't get as many views.
Also, are you the same Yuuber I'm thinking of? :D
A youtuber did a vid about it.
Seems like Goldeneye is really more about the Bond people not wanting that game to be rereleased more than anything Nintendo could do.
I'd already seen that video and thought it was very disingenuous of Matt to downplay Nintendo's mysterious "top level executive's" involvement in the cancellation of the remaster, especially when that bit of information came straight from one of the project's eight original team members (artist Ross Bury), as cited by
Ars Technica in a recent interview:
"When it was put to Nintendo, everyone there approved it," Bury says. "Except they didn't check with the one guy who mattered. I believe I was told his response went along the lines of, 'There is no way a Nintendo game is coming out on a Microsoft console,'" Bury adds. (If you're wondering how some of Rare's N64 games eventually wound up on Xbox consoles, remember: Rare took many of its older games' rights with it to Microsoft, but not all of them. 2005's Conker: Live and Reloaded was the first example.)
That had been a rumor since at least January of 2008, when
Kotaku Australia reported the following:
Looking for someone to blame over the whole XBLA GoldenEye fiasco? Try Nintendo! Sources within Microsoft who were very close to the project (and who also pointed us towards the above, alleged screen) have told us the game was canned not because of disagreements between the two parties, but because of Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata, who believes that, as a title which appeared on a Nintendo console, GoldenEye shouldn't be made available on a competitor's system. This despite a proposed deal from Microsoft that would have seen not only GoldenEye released on the Virtual Console, but other, unspecified Rare games (Jetpac? Sabre Wulf?) as well. How very upsetting. Before you set your tasers to "hate", though, remember, this is coming from one side of a two-sided story.
I'm sure those "sources within Microsoft" were the same Rare devs.
What Matt presented in his video was his own personal opinion, not substantiated by any actual facts. If you ask me, Kim Justice did a much better job telling the whole story (relevant portion starts at 1:39, if the timestamp doesn't work):