Xbox Acknowledges "The Journey" It's Been On To Revive GoldenEye 007

Xbox Acknowledges "The Journey" It's Been On To Revive GoldenEye 007

It's been a long one

No, you're not dreaming - Rare's legendary N64 shooter GoldenEye 007 is actually coming to the Nintendo Switch this week. After ongoing requests, it's finally making a comeback on the Switch Online Expansion Pack service this Friday.

Although we'll never truly know just how difficult it has been to revive this classic first-person shooter, not long after the release date was locked in yesterday, Xbox's head Phil Spencer took a moment to acknowledge "the journey" Microsoft's gaming division has been on to make it happen. As you might recall, there have been a lot of licensing issues to overcome and there was even a cancelled remaster along the way. Here's exactly what he had to say:

Phil Spencer: "The journey to get GoldenEye 007 out on Xbox has been a long one, great to finally get to bring it to Xbox and @XboxGamePass. This @RareLtd classic is also coming out on #NintendoSwitch @NintendoAmerica, however you decide to play, this a classic worth playing."

As Phil notes, "however you decide to play", this one will be worth checking out. If you go with the Switch Online version of the game, you'll have access to online multiplayer. And for users on Xbox, this game will be accessible via the Rare Replay collection and Xbox Game Pass. This particular version will also come with native 16:9 resolution and 4K Ultra HD support.

You can learn more about the return of GoldenEye 007 in our previous post and on our sister site, Pure Xbox.

We've been expecting you

I wonder if widescreen support on the switch delayed it from a December release. I'm intrigued about how they're doing this

I hope this does well, and also patiently waiting for Perfect Dark, if it's coming at all...

Great news and all, but since this is on the NSO service, it's not permanently owned by you and will likely disappear once the Switch is discontinued. I dunno, I have mixed feelings.

Oh cool I have NSO and rare replay.

Hallelujah! Getting this for free on Xbox xxx I would love to watch a 3 hour documentary about this journey for real xxx roll on Friday xxx

I’m happy that I have Rare Replay so I can keep this on my Xbox if they choose to end NSO at some point in the future. Although I have access to both the Xbox and Switch versions, I’m more excited about playing this in widescreen than online.

Sure thing, Spencer.

That reminds me I still want Rare Replay on Switch. Probably optimistic at this stage

It shouldn't have taken this long for GoldenEye. Can we get a proper Banjo sequel now? I'm sure we'll never see Conker again.

Another fun fact about just how hard it was to make this happen: the rights to the famous James Bond theme music are owned by... Sony.

Seriously. Look it up! Sony even gets a mention in the fine print at the end of the Nintendo Switch Online trailer.

It doesn't even come close to the unreleased 2007 / 2008 remaster.

What a bummer.

@JJtheTexan Yes but it's Sony music division headquarter in New York so it had nothing to do with SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) which is headquarter in California. Sony had a lot of branch in different industry so as long as it doesn't compete with the other it's okay to mention.

@Scapetti the Nintendo 64 original already supported Widescreen. It was an option that you needed to enable. Probably the only change was to make Widescreen the default mode.

@Serpenterror that's true! Sony Music published a game on Nintendo Switch a couple years ago, too. TinyMetal

Just another one of the Broccoli's tricks.

A Rare put another game for Nintendo Switch I am getting little emotional. In 27th January. This is a big one.

One of my main hopes for NSO has been that more of the quality N64 games that have literally never been re-released to finally be on a more modern platform. And Goldeneye is the best example, because it has been a shame that such an incredibly important game was one you couldn't even legally play without a console that stopped being made more than 20 years ago. Like imagine if for 20 years, the only way to watch a movie like say, Fight Club or Titanic was on VHS.

So considering that, I have to imagine it took an absolute ton of work to get this to all go through. Because if it wasn't, they obviously would've re-released it already.

Welcome back Goldeneye 007 like Banjo and Kazooie. Now Perfect Dark.

This would be fine except Nintendo (being Nintendo) wanted parity between the 2 releases as part of the negotiations and that parity was the original N64 version.

What should have happened is we got the HD XBLA port (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0GinqO4lhU) on both consoles instead.

Instead of pushing for the best version on both consoles we got the original instead. Yay.

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