Yooka-Laylee Dev Not Being Bought By Xbox, Clarifies Continued Independence

Are they not all former rare employees?
I'd think the last company they'd sell out to would be M$ after the rare kinect fiasco

Ridiculous rumour. OG Rare staff stagnating at MS leave to start own studio then agree to MS buyout. Sounds legit...

That font they used in the message though 🤢

That would be stupid. They are the original RARE team, MS bought them before and they left because they were being restricted to make games like Viva Pinata instead of realising their full potential.

So microsoft bought rare, most of people there left because microsoft isn't good at managing the studio, the people thats left make a new studio, microsoft bought it again. Seems legit lol.

@get2sammyb what was the speculation that started this in the first place?

I hadn't heard this - which is unusual but it wouldn't make sense to leave Rare and then join up with their parent owners under Playtronic. I wouldn't be surprised if MS have a new studio or two to announce but Playtronic would be a surprise...

so wait the rumour started because some guy had a bag

well i have a bag with FFVII on it does that mean i'm buying Square Enix?

seriously i think the internet age has made people dumber

@AdamNovice i wish

When you're an independent studio, they're going to use bags from other games/studios.

I know Rare is with Microsoft, but I saw a guy that works on Sea of Thieves has a giant Wind Waker Link tattoo on his forearm lol.

@Rob_230

Pretty sure that’s the same font used in the Yooka-Laylee games’ text boxes.

As I'm an owner of all three systems, this is good news to me. Microsoft seems to kill franchises rather quickly, with only a few that have lasted since their first console to the Xbone (Halo being almost the only one). Glad to see that more studios are deciding to become independent and release on all, maybe Microsoft will learn to make more exclusives for their next console instead of the sagging few that are available on Xbone...granted I like the system, it is lacking exclusive games.

And let's not forget that Rare originally came from the ashes of ZX Spectrum gods Ultimate - Play The Game. Went for a job interview at Rare's Twycross office in the Nintendo era more years than I care to remember ago and they had all the original Speccy artwork framed on the walls!
Then Microsoft bought them, tried turning them into a Kinnect studio and all the talented people left.
Why would they want to get burned like that again?

@get2sammyb
That is a little weird though.

Extremely happy I'll get to keep buying their games on Switch but, even if MS bought them that'd still be an option what with them going 3rd party.

Wouldn't really be of note if they did, as it stand Ninja Theory, Playground and Obsidian are the gem's in the rough that is MS studios and this wouldn't really change much to that situation.

lol They had to make a statement because being linked with microsoft/xbox was damaging their brand.

@get2sammyb
I agree, but given MS has been buying studios left and right the last couple years, while it's not a leap I would make, I can see why others were wondering what was up.