http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2012/10/01/crash-lab-life-after-rareware-and-free-radical/ "Donkey Kong Racing was obviously pretty heavily tied to Nintendo as a franchise, and as Rare approached the finalization of a buyout deal with Microsoft it was clear that the game had no future, at least with the ape’s as characters. We switched it around to be a Sabreman game, and there was a great early Xbox prototype – but someone, somewhere decreed that it was a little too old-school for the kind of ‘revolutionary gaming experiences’ that the Xbox was capable of delivering, and so it started down a path of meandering changes, updates and ‘evolution’ that finally saw it run out of steam and fall over." So there is a prototype out there somewhere, plus the interview has lots of other cool info, but the confirmation of a Dk Racing/Sabreman proto is great to see.
Unseen64 got that covered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZiwuEXohOs Am I the only one who always drools while watching the footage taken from this proto?
I've seen the proto footage of the later Sabreman, but as far as I know we've never seen anything of it as a racing game; which this interview confirms existed.
Such a shame, Sabreman Stampede actually looks like a really fun game, I would have probably bought it.
Wow Sabreman Stampede looked pretty awesome the footage that leaked in 08' was that ever confirmed which console it was running on (if any) ? I would say x360 by the graphics.
Right before they shut down, MundoRare put up an extensive and excellent article about the game's development history. They say that most of the team was taken off the project to work on getting Kameo & Perfect Dark ready for the 360, and that Stampede was canceled in late 2005. So I'm not sure what console the footage was from. It looks like Xbox 1 graphics to me, but maybe it was running on a 360. Either way, it sounds like it was indeed a 360 game at the tail end of its life. I'd love to see the Donkey Kong Racing and early Sabreman prototypes be unearthed. Especially DKR. It's kind of crazy: Diddy Kong Racing 2 exists, and we've never seen a single glimpse of it!
