Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler believes that a Banjo-Kazooie title from the right developer could rival 3D Mario games.
Mahler took to Twitter/X to share that he wasn’t successful in getting Microsoft executives on-board with the idea of Moon Studios’ Ori IP becoming a mascot for Xbox. On the other hand, he didn’t want to potentially spend another 10 years working on a mascot game with a large corporation like Disney, as it likely wouldn’t have made any financial sense for the studio.
According to the Moon Studios CEO, the Ori series could have evolved over time and eventually transitioned to 3D, had Microsoft fully supported the IP and future projects. He mentioned that Xbox doesn’t have any family friendly titles in its current first-party catalog, at least nothing that is of quality, in his view. This is what he had hoped Microsoft would see in Ori, but he found that Xbox is essentially about Halo, Gears and Forza and nothing else really got much attention from Microsoft.
Mahler also brought up the Banjo-Kazooie IP, saying that Microsoft has been sitting on it, with nothing happening there. He believes that a really talented developer could probably make a new Banjo-Kazooie title that could rival 3d Mario and could probably sell similar numbers. He mentioned that the Ori series sold more copies than the recent Donkey Kong Country games, despite the latter having Nintendo’s marketing power behind them. He believes that if Moon Studios would take over Banjo, it could make that IP thrive. Having spent over a decade designing these platformer games, he believes he has proven that he knows what he’s doing I’m that regard.
Moon Studios is currently busy with the development of No Rest for the Wicked, but he believes the studio could make a Banjo-Kazooie game that would be right up there with the likes of Mario Odyssey. Though, he admitted that it wouldn’t do similar sales numbers right away, and that it would take a big hit and a few years of success for it fiercely compete with Nintendo.
