Viva Piñata is one of my favorite counter-example games to all of the "Rare stopped being what made them great on Nintendo consoles when Microsoft bought them".

Viva Piñata is one of my favorite counter-example games to all of the "Rare stopped being what made them great on Nintendo consoles when Microsoft bought them". Viva Piñata never quite found the right audience on the Xbox 360 but it was exactly the sort of fun crazy thing that would have delighted Nintendo audiences in the right lull between Pokemon or Animal Crossing releases. (My other common counter-example is how Rare's "lost" years where they were pumping out of a lot of Kinect focused games wouldn't seem that "lost" or strange in the context if had it been Rare going all in on Wii games. Also Rare's Kinect games were some of the best and it is a shame that the Kinect is nearly extinct at this point. A lot of people think Rare was "forced" to do all the Kinect games, but interviews from the time showed Rare had such a Nintendo-like delight in the tech, that to me at least always seemed fitting for Rare.)