There's no question that the once great developer Rare has fallen from grace in recent years. A majority of the games coming from the studio have been for Kinect, and all of the well-known properties that made the developer so wonderful have fallen by the wayside. One of these franchises was called Killer Instinct, and many gamers considered it one of the greatest fighting game series of all time. Microsoft is very aware of this, and that's why they've opted to renew their trademark on the title.

Renewing trademarks isn't anything new for any company in this industry, but what makes this one in particular so odd is that Microsoft actually came out and announced that they had done so. The announcement arrived via PlayXBLA earlier today, and (as many may have probably been able to piece together after reading the site's name) it may allude the re-release of a Killer Instinct title on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

PlayXBLA reports:

"With all due respect to our friends in the media who like to frequent trademark sites, we thought we’d break this one ourselves."

"Our legal eagles have authorized us to say: “We have either renewed or refiled a trademark application in various jurisdictions.”"

It wouldn't be the first time Rare brought its illustrious back catalogue to the Xbox 360's digital storefront. Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Perfect Dark have all made their way to the XBLA, and it wouldn't be surprising at all to see Killer Instinct, or even its sequel, arrive at some point in the near future. In the past, the job of porting Rare's games to the Xbox Live Marketplace has fallen to 4J Studios (the same devs that are responsible for bringing Minecraft to Xbox 360), and it's easy to imagine that they may be called upon again to lend their expertise to a Killer Instinct port. With Rare hard at work on two games for the Xbox 720, 4J Studios is definitely a solid developer for the job.

Of course, there's always a slight possibility that a brand new installment in the franchise, Killer Instinct 3, may currently be under development, but that doesn't seem as likely as an HD port. Whatever the reason is for officially announcing the renewal of the Killer Instinct trademark, fans of the once popular fighting franchise now have hope that they may finally become reacquainted with the property — let's just hope that Microsoft doesn't let them down.

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Follow me on Twitter for updates on a new Killer Instinct, as well as other gaming news, @TheRileyLittle.

Source: PlayXBLA