Officially called Rare Ltd., Rareware was a 2nd-party developer for Nintendo from 1994 until 2002, whereupon the studio and all of its properties were purchased by Nintendo's newest competitor, Microsoft. Having been responsible for the wildly-popular Donkey Kong Country series on the Super NES, people expected great things from Rare, and they delivered. Being part of Nintendo's "Ultra 64 Dream Team" (a cadre of studios who got exclusive access to the Nintendo 64 hardware as it was being developed), Rare was able to optimise graphics for the N64's often finicky RCP chip in order to shoehorn huge, expansive worlds into the cartridge, where other developers simply floundered about for 6 months before going out of business.
Please note, it is difficult to know precisely how many individual units these games sold, because they were packed in with the Nintendo 64 console at one point or another and sales reports considered pack-ins and individual sales to be the same.
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GoldenEye 007
Release date: August 1997 (JP, NA) / November 1997 (EU) Genre: First-person shooter, action Multiplayer?: Yes (up to 4 players) Sales: 8 million Pack-in? Yes Special considerations: Rumble Pak compatible Current availability: Nintendo Classics, Xbox Game Pass |
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Donkey Kong 64
Release date: November 1999 (NA) / December 1999 (JP, EU) Genre: Platforming, adventure Multiplayer?: Yes (up to 4 players) Sales: 5.27 million Pack-in?: Yes Special considerations: Expansion Pak required and included with game, Rumble Pak compatible, yellow cartridge Current availability: none |
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Diddy Kong Racing
Release Date: November 1997 (WW) Genre: Sports, racing Multiplayer?: Yes (up to 4 players) Sales: 4.8 million Pack-in?: No Special considerations: Rumble Pak compatible, Controller Pak compatible, re-released on Nintendo DS Current availability: none |
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