Rogue Squadron 2 and 3 - Rebel Strike

[V3ntilator]

These two were only released on GameCube with eyecandy gfx and runs at 60 fps.
Looks alot better than the this one just released on steam.

Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron
Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron II - Rebel Strike

Does anyone know if Nintendo owns the assets of these, so they can't be remastered for PC?

I think they are partially funded, or funded by Nintendo. Factor 5 was with Nintendo for many years, and even designed the MusyX soundchip for Gamecube because of Star Wars games.

[Dan loeb]

Its not so much about the assets of the game as it is the contracts signed to allow to publish the specific game for the specific hardware. since it's a gamecube exclusive they almost certainly had the developer and publisher (if it wasn't nintendo) sign them, and nintendo would in turn promote the product heavily on their end, as sony/ms/etc do with their exclusives also. they also typically provide higher amounts of support to the developer, regarding best practices when optimizing the game for the console, general issues, etc.

[BrySkye]

Nintendo owned the world wide distribution rights of the games for 5 years.

Thing is, Factor 5 is gone. Unlike Rogue Squadron, Lucas Arts had little direct involvement in the development of the two sequels. Only a single person from Lucas Arts directly worked with developing Rogue Leader, so they may not have had the source code, which in turn means Disney won't have it now either.
Without the source code, the games can't be ported to other systems, and we just don't know who has that.

One of Factor 5's last projects was to combine all three Rogue Squadron games onto a single Wii disc with enhanced features and additions like lightsabre fights with the Wii Remote.
That was apparently finished, but never released. When Factor 5 signed their deal with Sony, they declined anything related to Rogue Squadron for the Playstation, and so Liar was made instead.

...Which went well...

[AxePegase14]

They are only on the Nintendo Gamecube

[Mabecael]

After many years, finally I can play rogue leader using dolphin emulator, and it look great!!!!, full HD, in 46 inch TV, 3D Tridef software, Home theater, using pc Joystick
In my opinion, the best game on star wars universe.

[Xello]

The main point is these are gamecube exclusives that would require extensive work to port to PC. Rogue squadron was always on PC.

[V3ntilator]

Thank you all for the answers. I know more about this now.
I bought both sequels on release, and still have them on retail discs.

Looks like its hard to get the source, but there would be a second problem.
The games were made for a IBM PowerPC CPU which is totally different from Intel/AMD.
Developers today hatef PowerPC for years, and wouldn't be motivated to port a game with this code, and would probably not optimize it.

If someone else got the code, they would need to pay licensing fee's to Disney for Star Wars name etc. Too expensive for a Indie.

I wish Factor 5 released the Star Wars Trilogy instead of Lair. If they did, the company might still have been alive today.
Unreleased finished games have been leaked on the net, but not this trilogy. Maybe because its licensed, and too easy to track down the leaker as Factor 5 only had only 25 +/- employes.

Here is some trivia:

Rogue Leader 2 needed 18 months to be made, but there was only 8 months until GameCube launch.
They made the whole game under pressure in only 8 months, and it ran at 60 fps on launch. Impressive. It also looked good.

They had more time on the third Star Wars from 2003, and ended up as the best looking GameCube game ever made.

[V I D A L]

Originally posted by The Ventilator:

These two were only released on GameCube with eyecandy gfx and runs at 60 fps.
Looks alot better than the this one just released on steam.

Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron
Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron II - Rebel Strike

Does anyone know if Nintendo owns the assets of these, so they can't be remastered for PC?

I think they are partially funded, or funded by Nintendo. Factor 5 was with Nintendo for many years, and even designed the MusyX soundchip for Gamecube because of Star Wars games.

Nintendo owns nothing regarding those games. Lucasarts were always the owner of the assets. The only hope you can have is for those assets to still exist. Developers losing game assets (especialy console games) is not very rare among live studios, let alone studios dead for almost a decade. You can only hope Lucasarts rescued the assets when Factor 5 burnt.. otherwise it may be nearly impossible to bring them to PC. Don't worry about Nintendo, they don't own a thing regarding Star Wars.

[V3ntilator]

Originally posted by V I D A L:

Originally posted by The Ventilator:

These two were only released on GameCube with eyecandy gfx and runs at 60 fps.
Looks alot better than the this one just released on steam.

Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron
Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron II - Rebel Strike

Does anyone know if Nintendo owns the assets of these, so they can't be remastered for PC?

I think they are partially funded, or funded by Nintendo. Factor 5 was with Nintendo for many years, and even designed the MusyX soundchip for Gamecube because of Star Wars games.

Nintendo owns nothing regarding those games. Lucasarts were always the owner of the assets. The only hope you can have is for those assets to still exist. Developers losing game assets (especialy console games) is not very rare among live studios, let alone studios dead for almost a decade. You can only hope Lucasarts rescued the assets when Factor 5 burnt.. otherwise it may be nearly impossible to bring them to PC. Don't worry about Nintendo, they don't own a thing regarding Star Wars.

I think the code went lost when Factor 5 died. If not, there would be remasters already.
As mentioned its not easy to port it as its only exists for PPC.
I don't think its worth the effort, as the ports would also need to be 60 fps like the originals.

Goldeneye is 20 years old, and Nintendo still owns the assets of that licensed game.

Microsoft wanted it on Rare Replay for Xbox One last year, but Nintendo didn't allow it.
MS and Activision tried to get the assets for Goldeneye for years earler for a remaster..Nintendo refused. Activision had to make it from scratch, and it failed.

It doesen't mean anything that Nintendo don't own the license. Not even MGM can demand the game assets as they are fully Nintendo owned, and 100% Nintendo funded.

The funny thing is even with Nintendo owning the assets, they aren't allowed to release it on Wii U for example as they would need to purchase the Goldeneye rights again.

[BrySkye]

GoldenEye was a bit more complicated than just something like the assets.

The problem there was that it was Nintendo that acquired the James Bond License at the time. They also published the game, combined with some other details surrouding both the game and the circumstances under which Nintendo sold their 49% share of Rare back to the Stamper Brothers.
Basically, both Nintendo and Microsoft own certain rights regarding the game and both need to come to terms to allow the game to reappear on either companies systems.

A deal was in motion for the original game to come to the Virtual Console while Microsoft would release their HD port, with both companies receiving a share of the game being sold on the other system, but Nintendo eventually nixed that, probably understanding that such a deal favoured MS being able to sell a much more comprehensive and enhanced port compared to what would just be an N64 game emulated on the Wii.

Ultimately the split between Nintendo and Rare was a bit bitter and looking back on everything Rare has done since (and to an extent before, Star Fox Adventures was no masterpiece), it's hard to say they made the wrong decision in selling the company off.
With the likes of Gone With the Ghoulies, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts and Kinect Sports, Rare hasn't set the gaming world on fire since the N64.

With Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike, there might be some similar conditions behind the scenes, though it's probably unlikely if there was ever a consideration of taking them to PS3.

Probably the bigger problem, and why the game is so difficult for Dolphin to emulate, is because Factor 5 used all kinds of messy hacks to make them. In terms of features, it's still one of the most advanced GCN games.
The latest nightly builds are pretty compatible, but performance can still be a big issue unless you have a really beasty CPU between 4 and 5ghz.

[Xello]

Originally posted by BrySkye:

The latest nightly builds are pretty compatible, but performance can still be a big issue unless you have a really beasty CPU between 4 and 5ghz.

After playing rogue squadron again im definitely going to check out how rogue leader runs on dolphin. I have one of those beasty CPUs so hopefully pretty well.

[V3ntilator]

Originally posted by BrySkye:

GoldenEye was a bit more complicated than just something like the assets.

The problem there was that it was Nintendo that acquired the James Bond License at the time. They also published the game, combined with some other details surrouding both the game and the circumstances under which Nintendo sold their 49% share of Rare back to the Stamper Brothers.
Basically, both Nintendo and Microsoft own certain rights regarding the game and both need to come to terms to allow the game to reappear on either companies systems.

A deal was in motion for the original game to come to the Virtual Console while Microsoft would release their HD port, with both companies receiving a share of the game being sold on the other system, but Nintendo eventually nixed that, probably understanding that such a deal favoured MS being able to sell a much more comprehensive and enhanced port compared to what would just be an N64 game emulated on the Wii.

Ultimately the split between Nintendo and Rare was a bit bitter and looking back on everything Rare has done since (and to an extent before, Star Fox Adventures was no masterpiece), it's hard to say they made the wrong decision in selling the company off.
With the likes of Gone With the Ghoulies, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts and Kinect Sports, Rare hasn't set the gaming world on fire since the N64.

With Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike, there might be some similar conditions behind the scenes, though it's probably unlikely if there was ever a consideration of taking them to PS3.

Probably the bigger problem, and why the game is so difficult for Dolphin to emulate, is because Factor 5 used all kinds of messy hacks to make them. In terms of features, it's still one of the most advanced GCN games.
The latest nightly builds are pretty compatible, but performance can still be a big issue unless you have a really beasty CPU between 4 and 5ghz.

Thank you. Most of what you say rings a bell here now. :)

I didn't know Rebel Strike etc. couldn't be properly emulated so far. When i played it, i use my real GameCube instead or a Wii.

Rare was no loss for Nintendo. The reason why Starfox Adventures was a "miss", is maybe because loads of Rare's staff quitted already in late 1990's, and a bunch more when MS bought them.
Without the original team, the magic went lost in limbo.

Rare did totally change gameplay and style on same game several times. No wonder why they used so long time to make a game.
Starfox Adventures is Dinosaur Planet. Conker was originally a kids game. Kameo went through alot of changes, same for Perfect Dark, and even Donkey Kong 64.

Kameo is underrated, and actually have the Rare magic mostly. It was originally for GameCube, but the final game turned out good on 360.
Kameo is one of my top 10 favourite 360 games ever. Kameo 2 were planned, but scrapped around 2009/2010.

Anyway.. Factor 5 pushed Nintendo consoles to the limit at any price, and probably why their games is too "hacky" for proper emulation so far.

Factor 5 started with Assembler on Amiga...Pure machine code. They grew up with optimized games, and is why they were ahead of most other developers..but also when it came to sound.
Factor 5 was also the first company to make 7 sound channels in a Amiga game. Amiga itself have 4 channels, F5 added 3 extra channels in a hack.
They were always a hack company which wanted to do the impossible. They laughed at other Wii developers, because none of them knew how to push Wii hardware besides Nintendo.
They wanted to show other developers how they push Wii, but sadly Lair ruined that possebility.

[V3ntilator]

Here is some update, but could be mentioned somewhere here as for Disney.

- Epic Games have aquired Factor 5 to waste their talent som som streaming things.
Means Epic have ruined Factor 5.
- LucasArts is owned by Disney.
- Star Wars game franchise is still EA Exclusive

Also this: (Confirmed by Chris Huelsbeck in a interview 2 weeks ago)

- Factor 5 already remastered the whole Rogue Trilogy for Wii.
- 100% of soundtrack were already re-recorded with a real orchestra

Since the 2 newest were Nintendo exclusive since 2000/2003 i think Nintendo owns the rights to these games to top it all.

There is no way we are gonna get this trilogy remastered again, or a upscaled Wii version as wrong companies prevents it from happemning.

Disney, Nintendo, EA, and Epic all need to agree.

[V3ntilator]

Originally posted by Avoozl:

I am already well aware of the problems at hand, that's why I said it was a shame they can't port these games. Nintendo hasn't really had anything to do with the Rogue Squadron games for well over 16-17 years now and they've never re-released them in any form whether it be a console port or via virtual console, you'd think that their original copyright agreement would expire by now.

Doesen't matter if the agreement/license expired, because it would still end up in Goldeneye situation. This is why the remastered trilogy were for Wii only.

Nintendo still owns the assets, so they can't be released on a non Nintendo system.

Microsoft remastered whole Goldeneye 64 for release on Xbox 360, but couldn't release it because Nintendo owned the assets. Nintendo may have agreed if Wii port weren't inferior to a competitor console version.

When Microsoft bought Rare, they didn't know what they bought back then.
They didn't know until after the purchase that Donkey Kong and Starfox IP were not included.

If the purchase happened with Phil Spencer, they would get Goldeneye assets included in the deal.
Atleast they did get Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Conker, Banjo etc.