Rare speak out on the sticky legal matters of GoldenEye appearing on the Virtual Console.

Just when you begin to lose all hope after months of hearing nothing on the legal developments of GoldenEye's controversial appearance on the Virtual Console, Rare swoop in like a superhero with bad timing and... tell us something that we already knew. This is their response when asked who the rights for the game belong to, and which company may ultimately makes the decision to bring GoldenEye over to the Virtual Console.

"From my (uneducated) point of view, GoldenEye is caught up in a convoluted web of rights the likes of which would make the Weaver from Perdido Street Station jealous. That doesn't mean it won't happen, just that a lot of people with a lot of different perspectives are involved.

GoldenEye 007 has been a fan favourite since its launch on the Nintendo 64 console back in 1997, and has been described as one of the best first person shooters of all time. When the Virtual Console was announced in 2005, excitement was stirred at the possibility that everybody would get the chance to play this retro classic again. The only problem was that the rights for the game were scattered among several different companies, and it would be a very lengthy and possibly pricey process to get it on Nintendo's retro servers. Reggie announced several months ago that he was exploring all of the legal angles involved with the game, which was taken as a little nod to the fans that Nintendo were working on it.

The response from Rare is not comforting, but at least we know that there are things happening behind the scenes with this game. The question is, however, which downloadable service will receive the game: Xbox Live Arcade or the Virtual Console?

Click the link below to read more responses from Rare to Nintendo related questions. Stay tuned to N-Europe for the latest on GoldenEye 007 developments.