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Former Rare Dev Says Nintendo Were “Quite Envious” Of Rare’s Games In The Past

Former Rare games coder and Nyamyam co-founder Phil Tossell has claimed that Nintendo were once “quite envious” of Rare’s technical ability and artistic design within their hit games. After becoming a second-party developer for Nintendo in the early ’90s, Rare had success with Donkey Kong Country, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Starfox Adventures to name but a few, though it was Banjo-Kazooie that really kicked up a storm on the N64.

According to a RetroGamer interview, Phil Tossell, while working at Rare, said Shigeru Miyamoto often visited the studio regularly and heard a startling rumour that Nintendo revised their textures on Zelda after seeing Rare’s game development.

“Nintendo were often quite envious of us. I got the feeling they thought our games were technically and artistically superior to theirs. Miyamoto would visit regularly and I heard a rumor they redid all of the textures on Zelda after they’d seen our work on Banjo-Kazooie because our game looked better!”

95 thoughts on “Former Rare Dev Says Nintendo Were “Quite Envious” Of Rare’s Games In The Past”

    1. Oh god, no, what? Are you serious?
      Goldeneye is awful, it’s so bad now…

      Banjo holds up the best out of the Rare games.

    2. Who gives a shit. They made great games 15 years ago but now they’re a bunch of pathetic hacks resting on their laurels. They are utterly insignificant to the industry today and no one cares what crap they’re ruining anymore.
      Retro have long been the new Rare.

      1. Retro is good in their own right, but they’re far from Rare. Rare literally was outdoing Nintendo in AAA titles on the N64. You had Diddy Kong Racing, Golden Eye, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark 64, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and SO much more titles from Rare that owned the N64. Rare also reinvented Donkey Kong into what he is today. Rare wasn’t just a good or great company in the day, they were one of the best thats ever graced gaming. Rare sucks today huh? Probably cause the Stamper brothers left after the sell to Microsoft, as well as other key Rare developers such as Dave Wise. Its true Rare isn’t as good as Retro is now, but if you compare both at their primes, Retro can’t even hold a candle to Rare.

              1. that fuckin game is the shit dude!!! Best shooter ever in my book!! you even get to collect the enemies heads when get a head-shot!!

        1. Rare in it’s prime does beat Retro today, but we don’t know if Retro has reached it’s prime yet.
          I disagree that it beat Niintendo in the SNES/64 era. It was on par. Mario Kart 64 was better than Diddy Kong Racing, Mario 64 was as good as Banjo (not as good as DK64 but Mario 64 began the 3D adventure/platformer genre so it gets extra points). Goldeneye was overrated in my view and in any case nothing Rare ever did beat Ocarina or Majora’s.
          The whole last part of your comment reads as ‘look at me I know video game history because I’m older than 14’. I’m very aware of the Stamper brothers and Rare’s decline. I really don’t see how that’s relevant. Besides, aside from aesthetics, Starfox Adventures sucked and that was during their time.

    1. If Nintendo and Rare were pushing each other to make their games better, then it sounds to me like it was a great relationship. Things might have turned out a lot differently had Nintendo bought the studio instead of Microsoft.

      1. My wii u has no games

        Does it have to say “party” for ur dumbass to consider it a party game? Mariokart=casual family party game. Smashbros = casual family party game. MarioTennis=casual family party game. Even if it hurts u babys to admit thats why online fits well with them

        1. mega maninauhfeuvbdvcnskjc

          Mario kart= racing game
          smash bros=fighting game
          Mario tennis=sports game

          put that in your small mind dumbass

  1. Ahh, in house competition is the best thing ever. 2 studios competiting against each other despite working for the same company and releasing on the same console.

  2. My gosh! How could Nintendo stoop to such a level? Well, I guess it’s good that they didn’t visit Sony! Maybe this is why the Gamecube had the best graphics out there!

  3. Man, maybe this is why most Nintendo games have more polish than they need; this could easily be false but who knows. Nowadays Nintendo may be in the position that Rare was back then.

  4. I loved Rareware… They were singelhandedly responsible for my child hood. Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and the oft overlooked Jet Force Gemini… It was truly the Golden Age of Gaming.

    And then this happened…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhowqjuBS6w

    R.I,P Rareware…

      1. Love conker, want to see the sequel but…the original creator wouldn’t be working on it and he voiced most of the characters

  5. Well.. Rare just achieved that level of creative design because they were working with……. Nintendo consultants.
    After MS brought them, Rare became irrelevant, it never was able to pull a decent game like they did that time. Banjo Kazooie, DK 64, Goldneye 007 are timeless classics, Jet Force Gemini, Banjo Tooie, Blast Corps, Starfox Adventures are other great productions. Rare´s production today resumes to cheap kinect pasttimes

  6. That old fart miyamoto was one who was especially pissed when people prefered rare’s dk over his, so like a baby he cried and said those consumers were graphic whores which is why hd for wiiu was his idea lolololol

    1. Too bad rare wasn’t that great ever. People just have mad nostalgia goggles. Even if they were the Zelda this story is talking about is mm or pot which literally shit on everything Nd anything rare has ever even dreamed of combined

  7. I can’t believe he said that. I mean, it’s not an impossible thing that their game were superior or even that Nintendo had envy but he completely, completely understimsting the company that brought the two best games in history: Zelda and Galaxy and that has extremely high QA terms and always have had. Wich is not different than what Rare had but what’s the point of making such an statement? In terms of numbers it was better for Nintendo having such an amazing studio working for them than having them in other console. At that time there were a few mainstream diverse studios to compare your work with. Although what if this explains what the industry things about Nintendo being the only one selling on their systems?

    1. Dude, i can hear the dick in your mouth from here..

      Nintendo isn’t the only good developer on the planet, and they aren’t perfect. Get over it.

      1. Haha no they are. This developer just has a boner for nintendos masterpieces and wants to feel like he contributed. Go play knack you stupid pony

        1. I don’t even have a PS4, and Knack looks shit.
          Fucking fanboys, someone needs to cut off your tongues and fingers, the stupid are always louder…

    1. Please god no I fuckung hated banjo kazooie and every game he was in. Fuvk that bear fuck his chicken friends where is a hunter with a rifle when you need one. Put that shit bear to sleep

    2. Keep dreaming as long as Bone is selling a million Banjo ain’t coming to 3DS. Sorry. We need to stop making people buy it so Nintendo can use those IPS.

    1. I doubt it. Fuck rare. We got along fine without them. If you ask me those shitty kinevt games were coming all along. They just needed the right platfo to prove there shittiness

  8. Banjo-Kazooie
    Jet Force Gemini
    007 GoldenEye
    Perfect Dark
    etc.

    RARE WAS SO AWESOME BACK THEN <3
    i miss their great games… i wish we'd see a new banjo-kazooie every 2 years or so :/

  9. I started up Banjo-Kazooie not too long ago and was very impressed with how that game looked. They did excellent work.

  10. If Rare was still the same, I bet you RareWare would have their own version of Smash ros and could be better. The closes game that can touch Mario Kart 64 was Diddy Kong Racing. The closes to Super Mario 64 was Banjo Kazooie. Rare had enough IPS and franchises to do their own Smash bros. I don’t see why Nintendo were so envious Donkey Kong 64 was great and Star fox ain’t been as good since 64. Asualt was good but Star fox adventures was better.

  11. While I don’t see the point in reading this article, it makes me want Banjo-Kazooie even more… Nintendo is needing some new games and buying old Rare franchises will help a lot. They just gotta make it happen.

  12. Better then Nintendo’s? that’s a bold statement. I say those games at the time we JUST AS good as Nintendos. You cant get better then perfect which is what Nintendo’s games quality are.

  13. I loved RARE. It was RARE then Nintendo for me back in the day. MICROSOFT SUCKS!!!!! (Halo is fun though).

  14. Maybe Miyamoto got inspired about how well it looks and made Zelda look better, I don’t think someone who created bigger franchises can be envious, also, why they are not making super HD games like the other consoles if that’s the case?

  15. I wish Rare never left Nintendo. They really could have grown together and contributed a lot to the GameCube era, the Wii era and the Wii U would certainly be better of with Rare games too as well as Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS and 3DS. Rare was capable and accomplished.

  16. Pingback: Según RARE, Nintendo y Miyamoto tenían envidia de sus juegos | Tallon4

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