[quiet mike]

I have no clue how much Nintendo owns Rare, but they are the second share holder after the brothers. So thy have somwhere between 15 and 30 shares. THe rest is in small parts publick domain.

Now to the discussion at hand:

Nintendo makes less money from Rare's games and any other 2'nd party than from their own or 3'rd party games. The whole point of the 2'nd party is to help in hardware sales, which can only be abtained by having games. Since Nintendo can't make all the games needed to sell enough consoles to make a profit, they buy out shares in companies to become part of the board of directors and then makes a contract for exclusivity.

Because of this the 2'nd party gets great advantages compared to other developers (especially a Nintendo 2'nd party)

1. They are the first to get the hardware and development tools (and it's free)
2. First to get any upgraded tools
3. Know all the secrets in Nintendo's camp ahead of anyone
4. They are paid by Nintendo until they get a game out and the game starts to pay (many 3rd party games suck because developers need to sell the game to afford working on the next one)
5. (In Nintendo's camp) they can delay a game until it's really ready to get on the shelves without pressure from the publisher
6. They don't pay for costs of publishing, marketing distribution, etc.
7. If the games is not that great as expected, they don't have to survive on the bad sales of the game.
8. Free support from the 1st party develoment teams in crucial part of games (designers, writers, programers, engines, tools, codes)


Now a company like Rare could easily breack out as a 3rd party and do excelent. But until it is a 2nd party and the contract exists, they cannot be a 2nd & 3rd party like you sugest Justin. Nintendo is part of Board of directors, with the 2nd power in voting.

The same thing happened with Square. Remeber that Sony bought out 19% shares, becoming the second share holder. In order for Gamecube to get any games from then on, they had to branch out a different company that is owned by Square and Nintendo and nothing owned by Sony, so it couldn't have a say in it.

By this whole rant I wanted to show you Justin that Rare can't be both owned by Nintendo and work for other consoles as well.
BY what Xantar showed clearly, Activision could never take the upper hand on Nintendo if Rare would go for grabs, and Rare would better do to go on their own instead of being bought by a publisher.


So the Activision discussion can be stoped here. But I give you something else to munch on, and this rumor is the only one likely, and posible to do without giving Nintendo power to act.

The brothers that own Rare are rummored to go out on their own after the contract with Nintendo starts. They would sale the shares they own in Rare to start another company on their own that would remain independent and in which the best develoment teams in rare would join. Now that could hurt Nintendo for real.