August 10^th, 2004 (12:00am) - In July, on Rare’s official website, a Q&A session had been posted with Rare’s Game Boy Advance team. In this Q&A, a reader asked the following:

“The new Nintendo DS is coming out late this year. What are you guys’ plans on porting any of your immensely popular N64 titles to the DS? *cough, oh god, I think I got strep throat! *cough cough* PERFECT DARK ON DS!! *cough*. After all, the DS will be Wi-Fi enabled. Imagine... playing Perfect Dark... online. Yum.”

Rare’s response was:

“Sounds cool, but we’re not doing any DS games, are we? Or are we? Or... are we?”

Predictably, this caused quite the ruckus amongst the gaming community. While the response is vague, it hints towards plans to develop titles for the Nintendo DS platform.

Microsoft had officially denied past rumors of Rare possibly developing for the Nintendo DS in the past, after senior Microsoft executive Ken Lobb hinted towards two possible Rare-developed Nintendo DS titles at E3 in May. However, thanks to this Q&A posting, Microsoft has once again gone on the record to confirm that no Nintendo DS titles are currently in development at Rare.

"Microsoft and its studios are focusing all efforts on developing quality games for the Windows and Xbox platforms," the platform holder said at the time. "Neither Microsoft Game Studios or any of its developers are involved in developing games for DS at this time. Rare has developed, and is continuing to develop, Game Boy Advance games. At this time, there are no plans to support the DS."