Huge rumor involving Microsoft potentially terminating their relationship with Rare could occur within next year if Rare's next game called Kinect Sports 2 fails to reach sales expectations. Poor sales, public reception, and money spent with little return are some of the reasons for Microsoft to consider this a move.
The rumor originates from last month but somewhat confirmed due to the only major title Rare will work on in 2011 is Kinect Sports 2. Kinect Sports 1 sold about 2.8 million copies but the majority of those were bundled with the accessory (same for Kinect Adventures).
Kinect Sports 2 will be the real test for Microsoft to determine if Rare can still sell games without needing bundles or pre-Kinect hype. They might be expecting something similar to Wii Sports Resort generating about 1/3 the sales of Wii Sports.
Should Microsoft get rid of Rare, their internal studios would most likely take over the Kinect series.
http://kotaku.com/#!5781578/hope-you...-kinect-sports
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EA and Activision are leading a group of publishers and developers studios in an attempt to remove NDP from sales discussions. Their issue revolves around the NDP requiring members to pay to access its data and the lack of digital sales tracked by the NDP.
The other problem involves publishers and the Big 3 (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft) themselves do not provide digital sales to the NDP which ends up not covering or estimating these sales as a result.