Microsoft Offers Nintendo Rare Support

At last week's E3 event, Nintendo announced they had shipped their DS software development kits to more than 100 companies worldwide. We have just learned that one of those companies is Rare, a developer that gave the Nintendo 64 some of its finest titles ("Goldeneye", "Perfect Dark", "Conker's Bad Fur Day", and more), then was bought out by Microsoft almost immediately after the Xbox hit the market.

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Ken Lobb, of Microsoft Game Studios, has confirmed that Rare is working on two titles for the Nintendo DS platform, but gave no indications as to what those titles were, nor whether we'd recognize any of the characters.

Rare did continue to develop games for Nintendo's Gameboy Advance (published by THQ) after Microsoft aquired the company, however, this news is the first indication that Rare will continue to develop games for the next generation of Nintendo handhelds, which will, coincidentally, be going up against Sony's handheld, the PSP. Considering those at Microsoft most likely view Sony as their strongest rival in the video gaming realm, continuing Nintendo handheld support may not be as altruistic as it seems.