Moore:New consumers didn't care about what Rare were good at

In the third part of The Guardian's excellent Peter Moore interview, the ex-Xbox boss has made shock damning statement against Microsoft Game Studios developer Rare, saying the UK studio's skillsets are "not applicable in today's market".

"I spent a lot of time in the Midlands with Rare, trying to work on stuff that would give us a little bit more balance," he told the paper. "And so a few years ago we started working on Viva Piñata.

"I thought ultimately it would be very successful - and you know, Microsoft, we'd had a tough time getting Rare back - Perfect Dark Zero was a launch title and didn't do as well as Perfect Dark... but we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had past Rare by.


"It's a strong statement but what they were good at, new consumers didn't care about anymore," he continued. "And it was tough because they were trying very hard - Chris and Tim Stamper were still there - to try and recreate the glory years of Rare, which is the reason Microsoft paid a lot of money for them and I spent a lot of time getting on a train to Twycross to meet them.

"Great people. But their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market."

Personally looking at Trouble in Paradise and the new Banjo, we think Peter might have spoken too soon...

Codename 47 wrote:

In the third part of The Guardian's excellent Peter Moore interview, the ex-Xbox boss has made shock damning statement against Microsoft Game Studios developer Rare, saying the UK studio's skillsets are "not applicable in today's market".

"I spent a lot of time in the Midlands with Rare, trying to work on stuff that would give us a little bit more balance," he told the paper. "And so a few years ago we started working on Viva Piñata.

"I thought ultimately it would be very successful - and you know, Microsoft, we'd had a tough time getting Rare back - Perfect Dark Zero was a launch title and didn't do as well as Perfect Dark... but we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had past Rare by.


"It's a strong statement but what they were good at, new consumers didn't care about anymore," he continued. "And it was tough because they were trying very hard - Chris and Tim Stamper were still there - to try and recreate the glory years of Rare, which is the reason Microsoft paid a lot of money for them and I spent a lot of time getting on a train to Twycross to meet them.

"Great people. But their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market."

Personally looking at Trouble in Paradise and the new Banjo, we think Peter might have spoken too soon...

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=197353

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/ga ... technology