From Rare and a Platform for the Athlon 64 (PCGH Retro 24 September)

…2002: Microsoft is serious about entering the games console market – and on September 24, 2002 it snatches a close ally from its competitor Nintendo: the company announces the takeover of the games developer Rare Ltd. for $375 million. The traditional studio made its breakthrough in 1994 with “Donkey Kong Country” for the Super NES, later Rare developed, among other things, a highly successful (and indexed in Germany) N64 shooter in the James Bond universe. From now on, however, the studio will no longer work for Nintendo, but will develop games for Microsoft’s Xbox.

…2004: AMD’s newcomer is now also getting the right platform: On September 24, 2004, Via will be releasing the K8T890 chipset for AMD’s Athlon 64, which has just been introduced. Among other things, it supports the new PCI Express interface, which should replace AGP and PCI in the long term.