Former RARE dev explains how Diddy Kong Racing started as Pro-Am 64, then evolved due to Banjo-Kazooie's delay
Coming from a Nintendo Life interview with former RARE dev, Lee Musgrave...
“Pro-Am 64 had gotten to a stage where it was being called exactly that; the title screen was done, and it had all new IP invented characters. We got to July 1997, and it turned out that Banjo-Kazooie was going to be the game for Christmas. The team behind Banjo-Kazooie had loads of stuff in the game, but they thought they could really push it towards being a Super Mario 64 killer. So they wanted to do more on it, which meant that they were going to miss the Christmas slot.
I don’t know how the politics of it worked, but the decision was made that rebranding the game to Diddy Kong Racing would work better, especially as a Christmas AAA release. Nintendo enjoyed the fact that we chose Diddy Kong over Donkey Kong; I think that it was us trying to build on the fact that Diddy was ours, and DK was theirs.”
Full interview here
“Pro-Am 64 had gotten to a stage where it was being called exactly that; the title screen was done, and it had all new IP invented characters. We got to July 1997, and it turned out that Banjo-Kazooie was going to be the game for Christmas. The team behind Banjo-Kazooie had loads of stuff in the game, but they thought they could really push it towards being a Super Mario 64 killer. So they wanted to do more on it, which meant that they were going to miss the Christmas slot.
I don’t know how the politics of it worked, but the decision was made that rebranding the game to Diddy Kong Racing would work better, especially as a Christmas AAA release. Nintendo enjoyed the fact that we chose Diddy Kong over Donkey Kong; I think that it was us trying to build on the fact that Diddy was ours, and DK was theirs.”
Full interview here
