Rare Ltd.

Rare Ltd. (also known as Rare and formerly Rareware) is a British video game company based in Twycross, Leicestershire who currently make games for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Nintendo DS. They are responsible for games involving Banjo and Conker. Before Microsoft bought rights to Rare, they had the rights to Nintendo's Donkey Kong characters. They are responsible for bringing him back into his first starring role since Donkey Kong 3 in his own adventure - Donkey Kong Country. Therefore, Rare made the Donkey Kong Universe as it is known today, with characters such as Diddy Kong and the Kremlings.

When Microsoft paid $375 million for a 100% acquisition of Rare, they began to produce games for the competing Xbox systems, resulting in the cancellation of Diddy Kong Pilot, Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, and unofficially, Donkey Kong Racing. Under the terms of the merger, Nintendo retained the rights to all characters in the Donkey Kong Universe, while Rare retained the rights to the characters in the Banjo-Kazooie, Conker series, as well as all other franchises they had developed.

However, they continued to develop games for Nintendo's handheld systems, since Microsoft has not entered the handheld console market. Such games included enhanced remakes of the three Super NES Donkey Kong Country games for the Game Boy Advance and Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo DS, as well as redeveloping their cancelled Diddy Kong Pilot and Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers games into Banjo-Pilot and It's Mr. Pants, respectively. They are currently discussing with Microsoft about working with Nintendo once again to develop games for the Nintendo 3DS.

Appearances in the Donkey Kong series

 * Dixie Kong and Timber's hats once had Rareware logos on them.
 * In Donkey Kong 64, Rareware, along with Nintendo, sponsor the boxing match between the Kongs and King K. Rool as mentioned by the Microbuffer. Also, there is a Rareware Coin, along with a Nintendo Coin, located in the final world.