I'm getting many comments saying I got the "Nintendo wasn't the reason this got cancelled" wrong, that I oversimplified and misunderstood. I did not. Let me explain more, and how I've been in this community and legal mess for long before probably many people here:
Nintendo doesn't own the Bond IP at all. It's not their property, it was a licensed game, such license expired after the deal was over and EA got it on a bid. The game was published by Nintendo yes, just like Banjo Kazooie was, and where is that game? Xbox.
Now, in the description I clearly mention: "As you can see, even if Nintendo was an issue, they'd have to censor the game heavily for it to adapt to their view and see a potential release." - What does this mean? Well, that's explained in the second link which most people seem to outright just ignore. I obviously address Nintendo as a potential roadblock, but even if they reached an agreement, then they'd have issues with MGM/EON about what the game contains. It's all explained in the second link, after GE64 released and was a big success, they didn't like how the game "represented" Bond and started adding fees and guidelines to it. No blood, no Bond dying, no civilian kills, no good vs good characters in multiplayer, no cheats, no use of Bond theme, Bond model has to be the current Bond actor (This was recently changed when Barbara said Bond won't appear on any game anymore), etc.
So, what does this mean? It means that even if Nintendo had a role at blocking this release, it wasn't their biggest concern. The IP holders always are, and those are who decide what happens with this.
In 2014, Rare tried to push this again for release with Rare Replay, even went ahead to record interviews as "Rare Revealed", you can watch it here:
https://youtu.be/tESaI06fOJY
Once again, this obviously got declined. Why? At the time all the licenses expired, nobody owned the gaming rights like Activision back in 2008, so why? Oh guess what, same reasons as before! MGM/EON doesn't like videogames and they blocked the release! It's not that hard to understand and I'm honestly baffled by the people calling me out on this, when it's clear they didn't stop one second to think of all the other issues. I've had contact with GE and XBLA devs about this for years, I heard all stories and versions, some were told it was Nintendo by the higher ups, other knew it was deeper than that. Nintedo is, and never was the main issue of this.
Thank you for reading, and seriously, re-read the two links in the description with the interviews. It's clearly explained there that Nintendo isn't the only issue here and never was. They don't own the IP, they don't own the assets, they don't own anything anymore. All of that expired.
arstechnica.com
