As you may well know, the fate of the classic N64 game, GoldenEye 007, is something of an unknown at this time. I mean, it was M4D-L337 nifty, so much so that it came very close to outselling Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Nintendo's most successful 1st-party games for the Fifth Generation.
However, in the early part of the 21st century, Rareware, GoldenEye's developers, were somehow wrested away from Nintendo by Microsoft. They continued to make games for Nintendo as a Microsoft subsidiary until the release of their own console, the Xbox, in 2001. There were a few Rareware (now called Rare, Ltd.) games released for Nintendo's GameCube and Game Boy Advance, but there was still the matter of GoldenEye on everyone's minds.
Here's how it all went down...
Sometime in 1995, after the release of GoldenEye, the 17th James Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan, Nintendo approached Rareware, one of their 2nd-party developers, to make a game for their new Ultra 64 console that was in development (which was later renamed "Nintendo 64") based on the GoldenEye film. This film was released to mixed feelings by the critics, the consensus being that it had enough action to divert the viewer's attention from the thin plotline. So, Rareware worked and worked and the Nintendo 64 was released to wide acclaim and they worked some more until, in 1997, they released the finished product: GoldenEye 007. Being the iPhone 4 of its day, the game sold so many units, there were no more to be had for the 1997 holiday season. There was such high demand for it that store personnel had but to place the games on the shelves and fifty people per copy showed up to buy them. Eventually, everyone who wanted GoldenEye 007 got GoldenEye 007 and sales began to slow, then stopped altogether in 2001 when the N64 was phased out by GameCube. Sometime during GoldenEye's selling-spree, Rareware was purchased by Microsoft, which complicated matters for all of the games Rare made for Nintendo.
Fast forward to 2007. Nintendo have phased out GameCube with Wii. One of Wii's principal selling points was that it could connect to the Internet and access a server maintained by Nintendo, where the player could spend a few quid and get re-releases of classic games, like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid -- even games from long-lost competitors, such as Sonic the Hedgehog -- which could be downloaded right to the console and accessed at any time. Well, une grande surprise, people began to clamour for GoldenEye 007 again.
The James Bond series's situation had become very much more tricky since the year 1998. What happened then? Rareware handed over the Bond rights to Electronic Arts, Inc. In total, seven James Bond games were released on various consoles under the EA Games label. One of those games was the critically-panned GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, which was accused of capitalising on the name GoldenEye, when the game had very little to do with James Bond, himself.
Then, in 2008, matters were complicated even further, with EA handing over the rights to Bond to Activision. Thus far, they've released one Bond game, with another in the pipeline. 007 Quantum of Solace was released for the 2008 holiday season for each of the Seventh Generation consoles (Wii, DS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3), where it got mixed reviews depending on the console. Critics called the Wii version everything from "trash" to "rubbish", as the developers had optimised the game for the more powerful Xbox 360, making it run comparitively slowly on Wii. But, I digress.
The next Activision Bond game has brought new life into the old issue again. Why? Because of the game's subject matter and title...
GoldenEye 007.
A Wii-exclusive revisioning of the critically-acclaimed N64 game, with Daniel Craig in place of Pierce Brosnan -- the storyline has been altered to fit Craig's shockingly revisionist James Bond into the post-Cold War plot of the original film. It seemed to go over quite well at E3 recently, but there are many who do not believe Activision can pull it off, especially on the heels of the unsuccessful Wii port of Quantum.
Irrelevant, really -- the issue is the original GoldenEye 007. Now that a new game with the same title is being released for Wii, what should happen with the classic?
I believe I've found the answer.
Some months, closer to a couple of years ago, Microsoft announced that they had given GoldenEye 64 a makeover -- improved graphics and audio all around -- and were planning to release it to their Xbox Live Arcade service for purchase and download. However, red flags went up at Nintendo, whose lawyers stopped the process dead in the water. At this point, Microsoft now has a flashy-looking new GoldenEye 007 all finished, but collecting dust in a mainframe somewhere, because Nintendo is calling them out on copyright infringement.
What to do now? Excuse the cliché, it's as plain as the nose on your face!
The flashy-looking, made-over GoldenEye should be released to XBLA for the new players who hate old graphics. Whilst at the same time, the ROM from the original GoldenEye 007 should be released to Wii Virtual Console for the veteran gamers who prefer this classic game over Call of Duty. Then, half the money from the downloads of these two versions of the same game should be given to MGM to fund the production of the next James Bond film. Then, Activision can release their totally new GoldenEye 007 and either make loads of money or learn a valuable lesson on messing about with classic games.
It's the most equitable solution on all sides of the issue. The N64/Xbox converts get their game, the gamernerds (like me) who like the game's classic look get our game, Nintendo and Microsoft get their money, MGM get support from the gamers, and Activision can release their game like nothing ever happened.