Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Since the Stamper brothers and Nintendo sold Rare to Microsoft in 2002, its been all downhill. Games like Grabbed By The Ghoulies on the original Xbox (later on XBLA) and the severely lacking Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on the Xbox 360 have shown that even with some success in the home console market, Microsoft cannot sustain a good in-house developer to put out AAA titles.

The legendary developer behind GoldenEye, Viva Piñata, and Donkey Kong Country rings in its 25th Anniversary with pure sterility...

VGArabia: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is now available for download via Microsoft's Games on Demand service through Xbox Live for cheaper than retail price.

MundoRare writes: Recent times and cancellations have shown that all is not well in Rare-land. As if the cancellations of both Perfect Dark 2 and Kameo 2 in favor of Project Natal have shaken the faith of even the most loyal Rare fans, David Wise's departure from Rare could very well be the killing blow. [...] From his Facebook: I think the business of Rare has changed a great deal, and at the moment there is just not the opportunity to create the soundtracks that Rare were fortunately very famous for. Unfortunately, though, this is only the most recent loss of a distinguished employee within the British developer in the recent months. Back in August, Steve Burke, another prominent Rare musician from Kameo fame, also left the company to take a year's sabbatical to go travelling, according to some Rare sources; no word if the real reason could be or not related with his well known desires to work for the film industry. Burke and Wise's departures only follow the trade open by Grant Kirkhope a year ago. Out of the musical department, there has recently been huge losses, with Microsoft's recent restructuring process affecting several engineers and artists, including Steve Malpass, designer for Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, Ghoulies and Nuts & Bolts. Moreover, some programmers have also left, like veteran Mark Edmonds, one of the remaining members of the original GoldenEye 007 team, who abandoned Rare in late 2008 after 14 years of work at Twycross.

Select Target Corp. stores this month began holding a new game clearance for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Rare was acquired by Microsoft back in 2002 and has been at the heart of the platform holder's internal development, but only now, with the upcoming launch of Natal, does the developer feel it and Microsoft are on the same page. Speaking to VideoGamer.com about Natal prior to gamescom, Rare design director George Andreas explained just why the motion sensing technology is such a big deal.

PathEngine has announced the release 5.21.00 of their pathfinding and agent movement SDK, with key features of the release being the addition of functionality for projecting 3D geometry to ground shapes, significant optimisation of pre-process data structures, and 3D content processing improvements. In addition, the team have also announced a licensing agreement with Monolith, and to Nexon for Nexon Star.

360-Deals writes: This July 4th, retail Amazon.com kicked off a special promotion on the Xbox 360 Arcade console. Get a copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts free ($29.99 value) when you order an Xbox 360 arcade at Aamzon! Promotion ends on July 11, 2009 at 11:59PST Here are the full details...

GamingShogun.com writes: Banjo-Kazooie fans be aware that the soundtrack to Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will be released tomorrow on June 30th via retail stores, www.sumthing.com, and will be available for digital download on www.sumthingdigital.com and iTunes...

Retailer Amazon.com this week price cut game titles for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 in the latest video game promotion. This week, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts held a sale price of $17.97, 40 percent off the $29.99 MSRP. In addition, You're In The Movies held a sale price of $14.97, 25 percent off the $19.99 MSRP.