Rare Replay has topped the video games sales chart in the UK this week, according to the Ukie games chart. This is the first time Rare has managed this since Banjo Kazooie was first released. This success begs the question of how long is it until other developers are going to make these huge collections?
We have already seen many HD collections, but most feature three games from the same series and put out at the full game release price, whereas Rare Replay has a varied assortment of titles and is only £20 making each game cost less than 70p. There are also some developer collections such as Sega Mega Drive Collection; however, most of these compilations have only a few games that appeal, whereas Rare Replay has given all of their greatest games, well excluding Goldeneye and Donkey Kong Country, though this is hardly their fault. Rare was one of the best developers once upon a time, but they had now all but vanished with Kinect Sports the only thing they were making. Hopefully with this success and potential hit Sea of Thieves set for release next year, there may be the Rare revival we have been waiting for. Although, a lot of the old team has moved to Playtonic Games, who knows they could be Rare’s spiritual successor.
The idea of a multiple game series in one collection can only work for companies that have enough greats to warrant people picking up the compilation, after they have several big names they can fill the space with some weaker titles. Not only do they need this, they also need to be fine with adding fairly recent titles. Spruce up the graphics on the older ones so they are up to date, include loads of achievements, then finish off with a series of challenges for players, and you have a high selling game. It may not be quick and easy cash, then again it’s better than great games being forgotten on old platforms. I once feared the new generation of gamers would miss games like Banjo Kazooie, that has been solved yet there are still many more who could be lost in time. Most companies are weary of putting popular titles in the compilations as they can sell them in their own separate bundle. This idea is fine for fans of the series, but what about new generations or people who missed them the first time round, they may not choose to gamble paying full price for a series they’ve not played. Why not put one or two in with a huge selection of other games and they will try it and then you have new fans.
Having a similar collection but set on one franchise would only have this similar scale for certain titles. A massive Mario collection would be phenomenal, including the spin-off it would surely see a high number of people picking it up. Pokemon could have a collection for their spin-off games, many of these are not worth paying a lot of money for, and so having a budget collection is very appealing, besides the greats like Pokemon Stadium would get people buying it. This is only an area for companies that have a lots of installments in one series to pick from, as most don’t they will have to stick with the HD collections of about four. Having huge compilations also cuts into the sales they would have if they decided to release their big hits as HD remakes individually or even making ports for things like the Virtual Console. Still, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie and Perfect Dark had already seen their HD remake releases on the Xbox but they weren’t omitted. It wouldn’t be much a collection without them, and was still probably one of the reasons many people bought Rare Replay, this would be similar for many companies who have already released HD remasters.
It is possible we could soon see the massive collections of a few big name companies trying to get money from their old titles, which is good as I know there are many great games I have missed. However, on the most part it is unlikely many major companies will want to eat up their potential profits they could get from individual sales, also some games may have license issues and other collections could just not have the same appeal. Rare Replay seemed to have enough to be successful and if it had never been a thing I would never have known what on earth a Battletoad was and why people had such a hard time with them.