xOmniCloudx
Active Member
I believe it was a mixture of those things. MS thought they were getting the same Rare known for their quality with Nintendo and get the acclaim and major sales but didn't. Eventually they became unsatisfied with the results they were producing given their history so decided to just use them sparsely after. Their first game after being acquired was Grabbed by the Goulies for the original Xbox and then the Conker Remake. The latter making sense but neither were the hits they were looking for.
In this gen they had Kameo: Elements to Power (originally a Gamecube game), Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata and Banjo & Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, games which weren't exactly the most break out titles even with PDZ having the benefit of being a launch title and easily accessible for that reason. Kameo has a niche fanbase, PDZ is seen as a pretty meh game by many that had played it and ultimately inferior to it's N64 predecessor, Viva Pinata has a niche fanbase, B&K is not a game popular in the B&K crowd feeling it's too much of a departure and ultimately not that fun a game from what I've heard people say. Plus none of them sold all that well (not well enough for MS anyway) outside PDZ I believe (but as a launch title higher sales are expected even for more less known games anyway). I believe their GBA and DS ports and releases of games were among their most successful critically and financially. Now they're making Kinect games or w/e to play it safe.
I don't think much would have changed quality wise even if they had stayed with Nintendo since a lot of their shortcomings around the past decade seem to have come from within Rare itself. Not to mention, they started off making the games they were comfortable making while under MS but still didn't get the results they had hoped for.
