Peter Moore Dishes on Rare and Their Lack of Skills
By Jonathan on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 7:37 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Games Industry, Microsoft, Microsoft
The Guardian has been running an interesting series of interviews with EA Sports president and former VP at Microsoft, Peter Moore, discussing his career through Sega, Microsoft, and EA. They’re interesting because now that he’s left the Dreamcast and Xbox far behind, he can talk openly about what he really thinks of certain companies and studios. Today’s interview focuses on the development and strategies of the Xbox and how even some people at Microsoft didn’t think it was a good idea. The juiciest bit of info though comes at the end when he divulges his thoughts on Rare:
…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, 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.
Ouch. He does kind of have a point though. Rare used to be one of those studios that could do no wrong back in the day; now they’re one of those studios that usually does mediocre, if they’re lucky. Still, it’s oddly refreshing to hear someone like Peter Moore talk so candidly about developers he’s worked with in the past.
Via The Guardian
he’s not exactly doing his credability any food with these interviews tho.
Just comes across as someone who, once out the door, will back stab you and talk all kindsa crap.
I’ve found his comments interesting, but they should still be kept to himself.
Altho it answered alot of questions with regards to the demise of the dreamcast.
I still hate Rare for what they did to Perfect Dark. How could they ruin the 2 gens past best shooter of all?
I’d have liked it if they took the same approach they did with Conker: Bad fur day, and just remake it with purtier graphics and some improvements to gameplay then release it on another console.
( Conker:BFD on N64 re-released on Xbox as Conker: Live and Reloaded )
They showed a lot of promise with Conker: Live and Reloaded. The multiplayer was brilliant in that game. Unfortunately their showing on the 360 has been fairly poor with the exception of the Viva Pinata games.
On the upside, the new Banjo looks like it might actually be pretty good.
I want to agree, but i was keen to play a platformer, havent really seen any real platformers lately.
But the new Banjo looks like its taken too much of a step away from the genre.
But we’ll see
What about Viva Pinata? I know myself, my girlfriend, and pretty much everyone i’ve made play it has loved it. Or at least gotten hooked xD