Rumor: Nintendo Attempting To Buy & Develop Banjo Kazooie?

There is a new rumor making the rounds that Nintendo may be purchasing RARE franchises from Microsoft.  Specifically, that Nintendo is attempting to regain rights to the Banjo Kazooie franchise.  This also leads some to believe that other RARE franchises could be on the sale block as well.  I felt a need to weigh in on the possibilities and what actually may happen if any parts of this rumor are true.  If true, Nintendo is most likely interested in purchasing previously exclusive and valuable brand IP's as opposed to outright acquiring the actual development studio.  Lets take a look at the current state of Nintendo, Microsoft & RARE.

• Nintendo has taken a lot of flak over the last 5-6 years for relying to heavily on brands such as Mario and Zelda and not creating new IP's or resurrecting old ones.  This has led to some pretty successful resurrections of older franchises such as Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kid Icarus Uprising.  Games like these help Nintendo regain "core" gamer's they lost with the casual friendly Wii console which is very important with the move to the upcoming Wii U.  Bringing back some of their most valuable and desirable N64 era franchises would go a long way towards winning back a lot of lapsed Nintendo fans.
• Microsoft has shown that they have little to no interest in the intellectual properties RARE regained when Nintendo sold them.  The failures of titles such as Perfect Dark Zero, Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts and Conker Live & Reloaded has cemented the fact that these classic franchises are little more than a money pit for Microsoft and an ill fit for their audience.  This was compounded by the mass exodus of essential RARE staff after the company sale back in 2002.  Microsoft has established themselves as a platform that has little to no need for the RARE franchises and they have kept a friendly and non confrontational relationship with Nintendo meaning that a sale of this type is plausible.
• RARE is no longer the studio everyone remembers, they are largely responsible for the Kinect Sports series and all of the pivotal & influential people of the former RARE are long gone. This means that there is little personal attachment to these brands and the influx of capital from their sale could fund new original content. Honestly, the RARE purchase and its fallout likely led to Microsoft ditching other former "first party" developers such as Bioware and Oddworld Inhabitants.  
• Retro Studios, developers of the extremely successful Donkey Kong Country Returns and the masterpiece Metroid Prime series could be the key to this whole story.  Their success with past Nintendo franchises has fueled rumors of them developing titles such as Star Fox and Zelda.  It's more likely that Retro would be given a game such as Banjo Kazooie and allowed to run free creatively due to the low risk and potential high payoff in the same vein as Donkey Kong.  The secrecy surrounding their current project would fit if they were working on a Banjo Kazooie title while Nintendo was finalizing the sale with Microsoft behind closed doors.
• These franchises are now more valuable for the intellectual property rights as opposed to a current RARE developed version of these games.  Microsoft can sell these to Nintendo for some quick cash and Nintendo could purchase these cheap for just the franchise rights instead of a studio that would be worthless to them in its current state. It's also worth noting that many if not all of the N64 era RARE IP's are only really appealing to the Nintendo audience seeing that Nintendo is the only company capable of doing them justice and returning them to their former glory.

In the end, this is currently rumor and should be treated as such but it is still an interesting rumor with some actual merit when everything is laid out.  Video games are a business and Nintendo controlling and developing valuable RARE franchises that Microsoft no longer needs is very good business for all parties involved.  Please comment on what you think of this rumor and its impact if true.

Original story from Zelda Informer