Satoru Iwata Killed Goldeneye on XBLA?

Jan. 16 4:53 AM by Lynxara

You probably know Goldeneye 007. It was one of the N64's most popular multiplayer titles, and arguably the precursor of modern console FPS like the Halo series. Goldeneye was originally published by Nintendo, but developed by Rare, Ltd, who is now owned by Microsoft.

1up was first to break the story that Rare was at work on an enhanced version of Goldeneye for Xbox Live Arcade... and that it wouldn't be coming out, due to a dispute with Nintendo. The 1up report suggested the difficulty had to do with profit-sharing.

The story gets juicier with Kotaku's report that it wasn't money that killed XBLA Goldeneye, but instead an edict from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Kotaku's sources allege that Iwata refused to tolerate a Nintendo-published game becoming available on a rival's hardware.

Kotaku is quick to caution that this is only half the story, but honestly, it sounds pretty plausible to me. It's totally against Nintendo's corporate culture to hand a game over to the competition, even if they get a cut of the profits.