Will DKC Ever Return to the VC?

[ColecoFan1981]

Will the Donkey Kong Country trilogy ever resurface on the Virtual Console?

I'm hoping Nintendo, after having suffered great losses over the failure of the WiiU before eventually recovering, plays it straight with the series' developer, Rare Ltd (presently under Microsoft ownership), over this. Nintendo itself is the rights owner to Donkey Kong as a whole. . . but the way I see it Nintendo removed the trilogy from the VC as I think it had to pay Microsoft a fee for the Rare trademarks and associated references featured in these games. What do you think?

~Ben

[Leo_A]

You must've missed the memo, since not only have they been released to the Wii U Virtual Console, they've been rereleased on the Wii Virtual Console as well.

In Europe, it happened way back last October, with the Japanese releases following in November. North America saw all three rolled out in late February of this year.

In addition, Donkey Kong 64 and the Donkey Kong Land trilogy have also appeared, on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles, respectively. Along with some promising recent comments from Xbox head, Phil Spencer, I think people are now awaiting the release of Diddy Kong Racing on the Wii U, despite the inclusion of Conker and Banjo, much more recognizable Rare properties than Jetpac was in DK64.

[ColecoFan1981]

You must've missed the memo, since not only have they been released to the Wii U Virtual Console, they've been rereleased on the Wii Virtual Console as well. :)

In Europe, it happened way back last October, with the Japanese releases following in November. North America saw all three rolled out in late February of this year.

In addition, Donkey Kong 64 and the Donkey Kong Land trilogy have also appeared, on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles, respectively. Along with some promising recent comments from Xbox head, Phil Spencer, I think people are now awaiting the release of Diddy Kong Racing on the Wii U, despite the inclusion of Conker and Banjo, much more recognizable Rare properties than Jetpac was in DK64.

But will Nintendo attempt to buy back the Perfect Dark franchise from Microsoft?

~Ben

[The Adventurer]

But will Nintendo attempt to buy back the Perfect Dark franchise from Microsoft?

~Ben

Since Nintendo never owned it... probably not?

[Leo_A]

But will Nintendo attempt to buy back the Perfect Dark franchise from Microsoft?

~Ben

Why would they even want to and why would Rare/MS ever agree to such a thing?

Considering that it's a cornerstone for Rare Replay, which is set to release soon for the Xbox One and has a lot of interest, I think your answer is an obvious one.

Diddy Kong Racing on the other hand I think has an excellent chance. And hopefully the GBA versions of the DKC trilogy appear as well (I'm primarily thinking of DKC3 with its excellent new soundtrack that was composed to better suit the GBA's audio capabilities, which would be a nice variation to see be available on here.).

[celerystalker]

Yeah, I don't know why Nintendo would care a bit about Perfect Dark. It's not some tremendously exciting property that is a big part of any legacy but Rare's.

[ColecoFan1981]

Yeah, I don't know why Nintendo would care a bit about Perfect Dark. It's not some tremendously exciting property that is a big part of any legacy but Rare's.

I think maybe I'd limit my scope to those titles Nintendo handled that were created up to and including DKC, such as:
* Slalom (1987)
* R. C. Pro-Am (1988) (Tradewest distributed the sequel)
* Cobra Triangle (1989)
* Snake, Rattle & Roll (1990)
Not surprisingly, of course, at present all four of these currently reside with MS - as they all appear on Rare Replay.

Why did Nintendo sell off its stake in Rareware in 2002? Again, MS only acquired the non-Nintendo-owned IPs but did not retain the workforce.

~Ben

[Leo_A]

I really doubt it.

You're best off limiting your dreaming to Nintendo tie-ins that Rare was contracted to develop for Nintendo and which seem to require some sort of cooperation with Rare in order to rerelease intact (The display of the Rareware logo in a title sequence, for instance). Rare either faces the choice to agree and make a few dollars off an old project that they developed that Nintendo wants to rerelease, or walk away with nothing.

But while it's not hard to imagine Rare working out a deal to make such a thing possible for a property that they not only don't own, but would never be allowed to appear on the Xbox One even if they did; It's an entirely different thing to hope for something like Perfect Dark or Banjo Kazooie to appear here.

It's quite clear that they're Rare owned. And since Rare is controlled by Microsoft and these noteworthy titles have a presence on Xbox systems, why would they ever cooperate to allow such classics to appear on the competition?

Again, MS only acquired the non-Nintendo-owned IPs but did not retain the workforce.

Microsoft bought the entire company, including all assets like the office buildings at Twycross and Rare IP from throughout the years. They never held copyrights for titles like Donkey Kong 64 since they merely were the contracted developer that Nintendo hired to handle the project, unlike a situation like Perfect Dark where it was a Rareware owned project that Nintendo held the publishing rights to.

They most certainly held on to their employees. A number that work there to this day have done so for decades. Microsoft didn't just buy some intellectual property and proceed to rid themselves of everything else.

No major corporate changes that I'm aware of even happened until five years ago, well into the Xbox era.