That was more then 18 years ago though, back when Microsoft was very new to the console game. They've had a lot of successes and failures since then. A more recent example would be Mojang which has gone extremely well for them - Minecraft is now the best selling game of all time with 147m copies by 2019 compared to around 14m back in 2014 when the company was acquired - largely down to their successful pivot to mobile and console.

I hope that was long enough in the past where they've done their DD and learned their very-much-needed lesson.

Pre-MS Rare was my personal golden age of gaming. I don't really play anymore, but man do I think fondly on those days.

How did it not go well?

> Kinect Sports Rivals

Great game

> Sea of Thieves

Another great title

If you played Rare games from the 90s you would understand.

Also those games while not considered 'bad' weren't exactly considered system sellers.

the things Rare has been known for were platformers (Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong) and FPS games (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark).

Perfect Dark Zero in 2005 was probably the last title in either of those veins, which was a launch title for the 360 (soon to be 2 consoles ago!)

Sea of Thieves is certainly a feather in their cap, it's just a bit disappointing that we haven't been able to see Rare take a modern crack at the things they were so known for, if that's even possible now.

Most of the Rare staff responsible for those games have left in the decades since (many of them formed Playtonic, which was the pitch behind Yooka-Laylee)

To expect a company to produce the quality/type of games that they made 20+ years ago is a bit unfair, don't you think? I'd venture to guess that the folks behind those games left the studio along time ago anyway.