No Goldeneye For XBLA News

Following last week's rumours of Goldeneye for Xbox Live Arcade, news has now surfaced that the rumours were true, although the title has now been cancelled. What's even worse, though, is that the XBLA version of the N64 classic was only two months from completion.

According to 1up, Rare's port of their 1997 original won't be released due to disagreements between Microsoft and Nintendo. These reports come from a "source close to Rare," who suggests that the deal-breaker between the two companies centred around exactly what type of royalties Nintendo would receive for such an XBLA port.

Licensing Goldeneye was always going to be a tricky business, what with companies such as MGM, Nintendo, Microsoft, Rare and Activision (the new Bond game license holders) all being part of this particularly tangled web. This is illustrated by the fact that if the XBLA version of Goldeneye had gone ahead, characters would have been removed due to contractual issues concerning the original actors.

Nevertheless, if you're of the optimistic persuasion, petitions can be found around the internet at the moment which aim to convince Microsoft and Nintendo to stop the fussin' and a feautin', and get the game out onto XBLA.