One of the great video game developers may be moving away from motion gaming. Since 2008, Rare has worked exclusively on games in the Kinect Sports series, releasing Kinect Sports in 2010, Kinect Sports: Season Two a year later, and Kinect Sports Rivals last month. But according to CVG, about 20 employees will soon be leaving Rare, which will lay the groundwork for a new “development process” at the company.
In a statement, Microsoft confirmed that changes are afoot at Rare:
At Xbox, our goal is to constantly create new fun, social and interactive entertainment experiences. As part of Rare’s commitment to this goal, we have made a decision to change our development process and methodology at Rare to best support our future projects, this has led to us reviewing the skills and the makeup of our development teams in our business. Rare continues to invest in our people and future projects.
While this statement doesn’t come right out and say that Rare is abandoning the Kinect (even though Microsoft has decided to begin selling the Xbox One without it), it does jive with Phil Spencer telling Official Xbox Magazine UK that Rare is still undecided on their next project:
“[Rare has] just come off the successful launch of Kinect Sports Rivals,” said Spencer. “I think I’ve heard a few times from people asking about Rare – they’re in the process of evaluating what they want to do next, and we’re working closely with them to see what their new project will be.”
But if they’re taking suggestions, might I suggest a Battletoads revival? The entire Warp Zoned staff seemed pretty excited about the possibility of playing as Zitz, Pimple, and Rash once more in Continue Countdown #3.
