Does a 3rd party developer truly own the rights to their game?

[Kiddo]

I think the reason is, it might not sell that much, It did in the 90's..But today might not

We're almost past the peak of the 2nd 2D Fighter Renaissance. The perfect time to bring back Killer Instinct would've been... a bit before or after Mortal Kombat 9 came out. That time has come and gone.

Anyhow, one note everyone's forgetting about Killer Instinct here, is that it's highly possible the rights issues are unique and different between that game, being an arcade title, and Rare's N64 catalogue.

[Leo_A]

Goldeneye is a whole different animal. This is an IP that is owned by a completely different company/group/estate. Nintendo bought the rights to the Bond movie/characters and, from what I recall, were sitting on these property rights for a couple years. They said, "Hey Rare, see what you can do with this." Then Rare develops an important piece of gaming history. Now, Rare would like to release this game on XBLA and I have no doubt in my mind that the only reason they haven't is because Nintendo is blocking them. While I have no direct knowledge, I am only assuming this is because Nintendo owned the rights to the Bond license, and so the game, 15 years ago and can somehow block the game from being re-released in 20XX.

Nintendo doesn't and has never owned the James Bond franchise. They licensed the rights to create a videogame adaption of the Goldeneye movie and those rights have long since expired. I can't believe someone even thinks they owned the franchise...

And it's not hidden information on who has the exclusive videogame rights to the James Bond movie franchise these days. And it's not Nintendo.

Are we positive Goldeneye doesn't contain Nintendo code? If so then, licensing or not, the game may need a significant reprogram either way.

Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and Perfect Dark on XBLA aren't utilizing original code anyways. So things like emulation which someone else already mentioned doesn't matter (Not that it would if it did, patents expire in 15 years I believe versus the 25 years I've seen cited in this thread, so the N64 is freely able to be recreated these days although the bios would be still protected by copyrights and have to be worked around). And if some copyrighted code from another company was contained within, I'm sure it would be easy to work around and eliminate during the porting process and converting it into a modern HD release with redone textures and such.

While not the best or worst of initiatives theres nothing really stopping them from having time to make new KI games...except for Microsoft.

While I've never been a fan of fighting games so it doesn't matter one way or another to me, I suspect this is a positive for the franchise.

Rare hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire over the past decade. In fact their best products have been XBLA ports of their pre Microsoft projects ported to the 360 by a 3rd party developer instead of Rare themselves in recent years.

I almost find it difficult even picturing a modern Rare programmed reboot of the Killer Instinct franchise being anything but a disappointment to the fanbase between the long time the franchise has been idle (Which means they'd be fighting a very uphill battle to match people's nostalgia) and Rare's track record of recent years.

[frogofdeath]

Goldeneye is a whole different animal. This is an IP that is owned by a completely different company/group/estate. Nintendo bought the rights to the Bond movie/characters and, from what I recall, were sitting on these property rights for a couple years. They said, "Hey Rare, see what you can do with this." Then Rare develops an important piece of gaming history. Now, Rare would like to release this game on XBLA and I have no doubt in my mind that the only reason they haven't is because Nintendo is blocking them. While I have no direct knowledge, I am only assuming this is because Nintendo owned the rights to the Bond license, and so the game, 15 years ago and can somehow block the game from being re-released in 20XX.

Nintendo doesn't and has never owned the James Bond franchise. They licensed the rights to create a videogame adaption of the Goldeneye movie and those rights have long since expired. I can't believe someone even thinks they owned the franchise...

And it's not hidden information on who has the exclusive videogame rights to the James Bond movie franchise these days. And it's not Nintendo.

Uh, what am I missing here? Don't recall saying Nintendo owned the Bond franchise, just the rights to make a game based on the franchise. Maybe I misworded my original post, or am using the wrong legal mumbo jumbo, but then you use the same terms and say some of the same things.

I was trying to point out that Nintendo is some how using the fact that they own the code to the game (not the Bond franchise...) and are using that as a reason to block a re-release. In the end, I could be completely wrong, as I have absolutely no insider knowledge of anything related to the matter. I have no idea why the original Goldeneye is not being released, nor do I care one way or the other.

[Leo_A]

If Nintendo owned the code, Rare would've never finished an XBLA port of it in the first place. The roadblock was with the James Bond licensing falling through at the last minute which has already been covered by someone else in this thread.

And maybe I interpreted your post the wrong way, but it sounds like you were of the understanding that Nintendo owned the rights to this movie franchise. Sorry if that wasn't the case.