More 'GoldenEye 007' Re-release Rumblings

Just as quickly as rumours emerged that the quintessential James Bond game, GoldenEye 007, was in development for Xbox Live Arcade, they were quashed when reports suggested a deal could not be reached between Nintendo and Microsoft.

Now, a curious article at Xbox Evolved has been posted, which hints the classic first-person shooter may not be entirely dead after all.

Rather than a direct re-release of the game on Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Evolved’s source has hinted at an new title from GoldenEye 007 developer Rareware that uses many of the same elements, including the same engine.

The website has had a glimpse of several screenshots for the game, which has the working title Bean Project, and reports that it appears very similar to the original. “The achievements for the game seem to fit also,” Xbox Evolved reporter John Olin writes. “One is for becoming a ’00’ agent, another for ‘007’ and another for the now infamous silo mission.” Joanna Dark, the title character of the GoldenEye 007 pseudo-sequel, Perfect Dark appears as a placeholder in the game’s dashboard.

Xbox Evolved speculates Rareware is developing this for release in the event that discussions between Nintendo and Microsoft fall through. According to the site, the two parties are allowing GoldenEye 007 to be released on Nintendo Wii and Xbox Live Arcade on the condition that Rareware will not be involved in the porting of the game to the Wii (instead, the game may be outsourced to one of Nintendo’s other developers).

While Nintendo and Microsoft both declined to comment, a representative for Activision, who currently hold the development rights for the James Bond games, said, “We have nothing to do with a GoldenEye 007 game, I would think that is Nintendo and Microsoft’s deal. Our own Bond game, however, from Treyarch, is powered by the same technology that made [Call of Duty 4] and that, along with Treyarch developers’ [Call of Duty 5] is coming along very nicely.”

Activision’s first James Bond game is said to be an adaptation of the forthcoming movie, Quantum of Solace, due out in November 2008.

Stay tuned to CommanderBond.net for all the latest news and coverage regarding all the James Bond 007 video games.