Nintendo and Microsoft money issue holding up Golden Eye 007 on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Since Microsoft acquired the rights to the British developer responsible for games such as Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie and of course, the much praised Nintendo 64 classic Golden Eye 007, Rare has been developing games solely for Microsoft's consoles (with the Gameboy and DS being the only exceptions). Rare has been working on bringing the Golden Eye 007 not to the Virtual Console, but the Xbox LIVE Arcade with online play via the Xbox LIVE service. But weeks before the game was ready for release, Microsoft has disagreed on how much money Nintendo should receive for the games.

"Unfortunately, the reason GoldenEye for XBLA died came down to money. Our source close to Rare said the conversion was a mere two months from completion, but Microsoft and Nintendo couldn't agree on the financial side of things. The point of contention, as our source puts it: would Nintendo receive a one-time fee for the rights to the game, or a continuing cut of the XBLA revenues? The latter seems to make sense for everyone, but apparently it wasn't that easy."

So does this dash chances of the game appearing on the Virtual Console, or the revised version appearing on the WiiWare service? Reggie did claim to be exploring every possibility to getting Golden Eye on the Virtual Console, but now it seems that it has failed. I will keep you posted though.

Source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165391