Article: Games; $400 Million Dollar Baby

When Microsoft spent almost $400 million dollars to buy Nintendo's favorite game developer, Rare, they must have thought it was a sure thing. Rare's resumé was long on hits, including the definitive first-person shooters Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, and bringing them under the Microsoft umbrella in those heady days before the original Xbox launched no doubt felt great. As soon as Rare made yet another masterpiece, Microsoft must have thought, every dollar of that money would just go marching back into the bank like the broomsticks of Fantasia.

Instead, Microsoft got Waterworld.

Rare's first two Xbox titles, Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live and Reloaded, were flops. Now comes Perfect ...

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