Play-Nintendo recently checked up on Rare’s website, finding an interesting addition since their February 28th update. Rare was asked about the likelihood of Rare-developed Nintendo 64 titles would ever make it to the Virtual Console. Rare responded that of all currently available and/or announced Virtual Console titles, Donkey Kong Country is the only one developed by Rare. Since Donkey Kong is a Nintendo property, the DKC series in its entirety will almost certainly appear on the VC eventually, as should Donkey Kong 64.
However, when addressing Rare-owned properties such Banjo-Kazooie, Rare responded that those games on the VC was at this point just a “possibility” (despite being owned by Microsoft and the existence of the Xbox Live Arcade). In effect, Rare hasn’t quite shut the door on Rare-developed N64 titles showing up on the Virtual Console, and coupled with the fact that Nintendo holds the publishing rights to the N64 copies of the game, I’d say there are good feelings all around to make things happen in the future. The only party that could possibly get in the way is Microsoft, so we’ll see how all three companies decide to handle the complex situation here.
