Rare Was Almost Bought By Activision Instead Of Microsoft

Many were surprised when Rare left the warm embrace of Nintendo in 2002 to make games for Microsoft, but a new interview reveals that the developer almost went in another direction entirely. They were very close to being purchased by Activision and becoming a multi-platform developer.

Develop got this interesting story by talking to Ed Fries, who was Microsoft's vice president of game publishing at the time that they purchased Rare. Fries said there was a bidding war between Microsoft and Activision which the latter publisher "had won at first."

According to Fries, Rare seemed much more interested in Activision because they wanted to go multi-platform. Even he isn't sure why exactly they ended up selling to Microsoft instead:

"Something happened between them and Activision. I don’t know what it was, but relatively far along in the deal things got cold, and we made a counter offer."

After Activision backed out, Microsoft ended up paying an incredible $375 million for Rare. Fries explained that at time Nintendo still owned half of the developer and had an option to purchase the second half at the same price Microsoft offered, so they had to make an offer that was higher than Nintendo would agree to match.

I'm having trouble imagining what direction Activision would have taken Rare in. Maybe we'd be on the eighth Banjo-Kazooie game? Either way, they probably wouldn't be stuck making Kinect games, at least.