Gears of War sells 2 million

[A Black Falcon]

There you go again, running off and ranting about something I'm not even advocating. You really don't get what I mean by mature/grown-up/edgier. I don't associate mature as being bad-ass, so to speak, going punk or whatever other ridiculous associations you come up with. I simply mean...a more appealing look. Something kids AND adults can get in to and appreciate; that middle ground I've been talking about since the first page. I like the new look of Banjo, and I hope it's an indicator of what the rest of the game and characters look like. Less exagerated features, less bright (obnoxious) color...just a different art direction.

Like I said, I hope it's goofy as ever. I loved the teaser. I love the toned down color palette. I love the harder/blockier/edgier/what have you look. Not sure what else to say to you.

Here's the problem: Rare does, and always has done, this, I would say. The problem is most people don't appreciate that, particularly in Microsoft's main audience... but still, Rare does do it.

As I said, short of going all FPS, I really don't see what Rare could do that could make them anywhere near the industry force they were on the N64. They lost their market and so much of their internal talent that it'd just be incredibly hard for them to do... as the last few years have shown.

What do they do then? As I said I just don't know what they can do... their audience isn't on their platform, and their game-making skills aren't ideal for just switching over to classic Xbox-fan titles, for the most part. So... make cash off of your handheld team's GBA/DS stuff and just rely on the fact that you're internal Microsoft employees and that they probably won't fire you all for failing to sell well enough to justify the purchase price? :)

I don't know, but radical overhauls of their game design concepts and making their titles more "adult" and "dark" would not go well. I can't help but think of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within as the model of how trying that so often goes badly...