Nintendo Forced Cancellation of Near-Finished Goldeneye 007 Remake for Xbox 360

During the Wii days, there were rumors about GoldenEye 007 possibility coming to the Virtual Console and even Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360. Now, this news is resurfacing again over a decade later thanks to a major leak. A few days ago, a build popped up online of the cancelled remake for the Xbox 360 showing that the game was nearly complete.

So why in the world did a near-finished remake of a classic like Goldeneye 007 never release? Well, it seems like the cease-and-desist kings, Nintendo, put a stop to the production right at the very end.

Ross Bury, one of the artists behind the game, told Arstechnica that among there only being 90 bugs left to fix:

“When it was put to Nintendo, everyone there approved it. Except they didn’t check with the one guy who mattered. I believe I was told his response went along the lines of, ‘There is no way a Nintendo game is coming out on a Microsoft console.’”

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/02/ex-rare-devs-open-up-about-the-canceled-goldeneye-007-remake-for-xbox-360/

It is not clear which Nintendo executive ultimately stopped development of GoldenEye 007 for Xbox 360, and even Ross Bury isn’t sure who it was. He knows for sure it wasn’t president Hiroshi Yamauchi, but the team at Rare was never told who it was nor why they they were so against a 360 release.

Since the original game was published by Nintendo, their approval for the project was beyond a necessity. Unfortunately, one person at Nintendo headquarters is responsible for the cancellation of this classic remake of one of the most influential shooters of all time.

But like many a project with high hopes and no permission from Nintendo, we see that cease-and-desist attack that puts an end to promising remakes.

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Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link for all of your classic remake news and updates. What do you think of Nintendo’s role in this situation? Surely there will be some backlash thanks to this exposure, but Nintendo will ultimately be fine. We have seen it time and time again. Let us know what you think in the comments below! Happy gaming, everyone.