This is why GoldenEye is missing from the Rare Replay collection

Rare's collection of 30 classic games includes Battletoads, Perfect Dark, and Banjo-Kazooie - but where's GoldenEye?

Talking to Polygon, Technology Development Lead Nick Burton dismissed speculation that the absence was down to Nintendo's insistence that it shouldn't appear on non-Nintendo consoles after the debacle with the attempted 2008 remake for XBLA.

Instead, he said that the selection was about choosing titles that were solely created by the studio. "We looked at 120 games in our back catalog, put them all up on a big whiteboard, and we sort of started grading them, right? When you've got so many games, there are going to be certain [factors] like who owns what,but when you've got that many, you choose the ones that fit the best."

When asked if getting embroiled in licensing battles influenced their choices, Burton replied "It wasn't necessarily licensing. Going back to the criteria — 'is it Rare characters, is it Rare worlds?' — GoldenEye doesn't really fit tightly in with that particular boundary that we put on there...I feel that we got a great catalog to choose from."

The Rare Replay collection features 30 Rare games for $30 dollars and is due for release on August 4.