They’re here at last.
Banjo and Kazooie, held hostage by Microsoft for years, are finally free to appear in Smash
Bros.
While not quite as unexpected as other characters added last week to Super Smash Brothers (such
as everyone’s second favourite Undertale character, Sans), Banjo and Kazooie represent
a mending of bridges between two major gaming icons: Nintendo and Rare.
So how exactly did this partnership come about, and why did Masahiro Sakurai choose to include
Banjo and Kazooie in the seminal fighting game?
According to Masahiro Sakurai, Banjo Kazooie posed one of the biggest challenges of creating
Smash DLC.
In his regular column in Famitsu, Masahiro said of the pair:
“I’d say getting them to be able to be in the game was more difficult than any other
fighter.”
What made this process so difficult?
Once upon a time, back when 3D games looked like the result of an explosion in a protractor
factory, Nintendo and Rare were best buddies.
Rare had entirely revitalised one of Nintendo’s most enduring characters with the release
of Donkey Kong Country, a game that took a one-note villain from a classic arcade game,
and fleshed him out with a personality, an eclectic family, and his own personal nemesis,
King K Rool.
Keep the lizard in mind - we’ll be coming back to K Rool in a minute.
Donkey Kong Country was one of the biggest games of 1994, and its pre-rendered sprites
made some people consider it one of the most beautiful games on the Super Nintendo.
The game might look headache-inducingly ugly now, but once upon a time, if you can believe
it, people thought that this was the next big thing in gaming.
For the Nintendo 64 era, Rare provided Nintendo with many vital third party platformers.
None of these shine brighter than Banjo Kazooie, which unlike Donkey Kong 64 was a wholly original
world, and also unlike Donkey Kong 64, wasn’t an absolute chore to play.
In 2002, though, Rare’s friendship with Nintendo broke down entirely as the studio
was purchased by Microsoft.
Suddenly, Banjo Kazooie, along with other games such as Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Perfect
Dark, jumped over to the Xbox.
This move meant for some confusion even among Microsoft over who actually owned the characters
from Rare’s games.
According to Chris Seavor: “Here’s a true story..
When Rare was first bought by MS a group of execs came on a tour..
One of them noticed the Donkey Kong.
..Posters everywhere and said..
‘Hey that’s great..
We own Donkey Kong right?”
The executives had to be quickly corrected.
No, Microsoft didn’t own Donkey Kong – this was a frankly baffling conclusion to jump
to simply from seeing a poster on a wall.
Nevertheless, the buyout did mean that Banjo, who had made his debut alongside Nintendo
characters in Diddy Kong Racing, could no longer appear in games on consoles such as
the GameCube and the Wii.
At least, not for a while.
Eventually, you convinced Nintendo to include Banjo Kazooie in Super Smash Brothers.
Yes, you.
If you requested Banjo, or if you’ve discussed him online or shared any memes featuring the
character in Smash Brothers, you’ve helped this become reality.
According to Masahiro: “This was another fighter that I received
a lot of requests for – mostly from overseas.
That being said, King K. Rool and Ridley were pretty fervently requested too.
And as I continue to grant these requests, I can only see a future where there’s even
more of them!”
Yup, you heard that correctly.
Masahiro Sakurai has stated that Banjo Kazooie are in Smash because Western fans demanded
it.
He also said that he personally grants these requests, and that more are coming in the
future.
Sounds like there’s hope for Waluigi yet.
Fan requests alone would not be enough to make this partnership happen, were it not
for Microsoft being willing to play ball.
Over recent months and years, the owners of the Xbox, perhaps noting that games like Cuphead
aren’t exactly system sellers, have begun publishing games on the Nintendo Switch.
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer sounds very pleased with their efforts in this regard:
“Obviously we’re one of the biggest third-party publishers on Switch, so we have great relationships
with their third-party team.
And you’ve seen the ambition they’ve had with every character that’s ever been in
Smash and even more.
So it was just kind of part of the partnership relationship we have with them.”
Masahiro echoed these words in his own column: “Speaking of Microsoft, it originated as
a rival to Nintendo; with that said, however, there’s no sense in throwing salt at former
business enemies.
“Bearing all of that in mind, they willingly loaned us the rights to the character for
this game, and Rare’s employees were received with open arms.
Thanks to that cooperation, we were able to help a lot of fans’ dreams come true!”
With such a tight working relationship between Microsoft and Nintendo, and such a strong
fan demand for the inclusion of Banjo Kazooie, a partnership that once seemed impossible
was actually incredibly simple.
According to Phil Spencer, existing channels made this very easy (at least on his end).
Said Phil, “The ‘how’ is not actually that interesting…
There wasn’t anything kind of CEO-to-CEO that had to happen”.
Phil might be understating the interest of this topic.
For fans, the idea that this agreement was reached so smoothly is absolutely fascinating,
and it does beg the question as to what might be coming next.
We can only hope that other Xbox exclusive characters can be included in Smash Brothers.
Characters like…
Uh…
A car from Forza Motorsports?
Time Travel Iceman?
We’ll keep thinking.
In the meantime, it’s wonderful to see two gaming giants treating each other less like
rivals, and more like fellow developers.
According to Masahiro: “These are my own thoughts, but things like
fighting over the differences between consoles and systems don’t really matter – it’s
not worth worrying about.
If a game is good, I’m going to respect it no matter what system it’s released for.
A lot of other developers probably feel the same way.
Having characters included in Smash Bros. is something that takes a lot of effort and
support from a whole host of people, and it’s something that transcends profit or loss.
The job I have is incredibly unique, and I do my best to create things that even please
fans of the source material.”
It seems clear that whatever’s coming next for Super Smash Brothers, and for the Nintendo
Switch in general, games companies across the industry are willing to work together
to put consumers first.
(In as much as doing so is profitable to them personally, of course.)
Perhaps the moral of the story is that many of the barriers we create in life are entirely
arbitrary, and we can make friends all around us if we’re willing to put aside our differences?
Or maybe the moral of the story is that if fans pester him enough, Masahiro Sakurai will
cave in and throw whatever random characters he can into Smash Brothers.
That certainly explains some of his recent decisions.
Either way, maybe don’t hold your breath for Goku or Patrick Starfish just yet.
That might be a bit too unlikely.