Shane Kim's been big on the PR muddy-talk this week, first with Shadowrun, now with Rare. Seems from 2002 until now, Rare have just been cooling their heels, victim's of Microsoft's "hardcore" console appeal. Seems we shouldn't really judge them for another 3-5 years, when the 360 will supposedly have cracked the mass market and there'll be an audience for their own special brand of games.

I think that the story on Rare is really going to be told in the next three to five years. The kind of titles we're really asking them to focus on now are the Banjos, the Viva Pinatas, the Kameos, and so forth. Rare is going to be our internal studio—really, our primary studio for the most part—that's going to be focused on creating those big, triple-A-level, broad appeal titles. We're entering into the life cycle stage of the console where those kinds of titles can and should do well. We've never been in that stage since we owned Rare. When you look back at Xbox version one, that was a hardcore box through and through, right?

That would be 2010-2012, then. Right. Stop me if I'm wrong (no, please, STOP ME), but in this business the mountain won't be the one to amble on over to Mohammed. If anyone at Microsoft really thinks that all they need to do is wait for their installed base to grow BEFORE setting Rare to work on these games, that's their #1 problem right there. Luke Plunkett

Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim [Shacknews]

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