Leigh Loveday offers an explanation of why Dinosaur Planet for N64 is now Star Fox Adventures for GameCube.
Rare's snazzy new website was updated today with this addition to the site FAQ:
Why did you decide to apply the Star Fox licence to Dinosaur Planet?This is the first confirmation that NCL ever started another Star Fox game after 1997's N64 version. It's hard to imagine that this is exactly how the amalgamation took place...but it IS the official company line, so there ya go. Also note the "first few months" remark...Rare is not holding themselves to a launch date release, despite what Nintendo may be saying in their press releases.It just so happened that even as Rare were in development on the original version of Dinosaur Planet, NCL were getting down to work on a Star Fox game in much the same vein. The similarities between the projects offered too great an opportunity to pass by, so the properties were merged and the project moved from N64 to GameCube to allow for the extra development time. Advantages? No conflict between two similar titles on the market; developers freed up for other projects; the promise of a first-rate franchise title within the first few months of the GameCube's launch. We're sorry if you were really looking forward to the N64 version, but at the end of the day these changes will result in a better game.
