Rare brings Jetpac Refuelled to Xbox 360 Live Arcade; says Banjo-Kazooie and GoldenEye possible on Wii Virtual Console

Microsoft has said Rare’s upcoming Live Arcade game, Jetpac Refuelled, will be on display at the Game Developers Conference this week. This is a new take (rhymes with re-make) on Rare/Ultimate’s 1983 classic space blaster with enhanced graphics and Xbox Live features; players must clear a path through hordes of aliens to refuel their ship and amass a fortune over the course of more than 100 high-definition levels (128 total, while the also included original has 16 levels).

Jetpac may sell for 400 Microsoft Points and weigh in at about 21MB. In the game itself, an astronaut must reconstruct his spaceship by collecting fragments scattered across the landscape and refuel his ship in order to get off the dangerous planet. — Play Jetpac in Flash here.

A Rareware reader asked: “I am a young video-game player, who also owns a Wii. I am registered on the Nintendo forums and talk about Wii and Diddy Kong Racing DS, awesome game by the way. Anyway one concern I have is the decision if Rareware titles such as Banjo-Kazooie and others will appear on the Virtual Console. I would like to know if possible you could give me an answer, I know you probably don’t have an answer, but I’d like to know, as I’ve yet the chance to play Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie as I’m 12, and never owned an Nintendo 64 console.”

Rare answered: “This is where we finally edge into territory that could see Scribes neutron bombed from management level. The only Rare-developed title on Virtual Console right now is the original Donkey Kong Country, and unofficially there’s a strong likelihood that its sequels will follow. But the Donkey Kong series of games is a Nintendo-owned franchise starring an established Nintendo character, whereas something like Banjo isn’t (and even Diddy Kong Racing is less clear-cut), so it’s nowhere near as easy to call. Especially when you also consider the existence of Xbox Live Arcade. So right now, the best answer we can offer (for either download service) is “it’s possible”.”

Then Rare was asked “When it was announced the only possible Rare title that could be played on Wii’s Virtual Console was Donkey Kong 64, seeing as Nintendo owns the rights to Donkey Kong, I seemed to remember a recent exchange of rights to the James Bond franchise with EA and Activision. Does this mean that Activision has the say in whether or not GoldenEye 007 would show up in Nintendo’s digital time machine? Or is the decision yours or Microsoft’s?”

Rare answered: “From my (uneducated) point of view, GoldenEye is caught up in a convoluted web of rights the likes of which would make the Weaver from Perdido Street Station jealous. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, just that a lot of people with a lot of different perspectives are involved. Oh, and I think you mean Donkey Kong Country rather than Donkey Kong 64, or at least that’s the only one that’s been announced to my knowledge.”

Jetpac Refuelled screenshot via Meristation.

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