GoldenEye and Viva Pinata veterans form Flippin Pixels studio

Five former Rare developers have left the Microsoft studio to form a new U.K. based company, Flippin Pixels.

The team, who spent the last 20 years working on titles ranging from GoldenEye to Viva Pinata, will focus their efforts on smartphone and tablet game development. Its founders, made up of studio director Steve Brand, software director James Ackroyd, art director Steven Hurst, design director Shaun Read and technical director Gary Richard, left Microsoft last year to begin their shift to the mobile market.

"We have a lot to learn, but what we do bring is years of console experience and high quality execution," Ackroyd told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We've only just recently been looking at how to monetize through games. The nature of the mobile market is so fast moving you can't afford to stay on something for months. You need to get it out there while it's still fresh. It's a little bit like buying a lottery ticket but if you've got the quality there hopefully that rises to the top."

The newly formed studio is currently working on a number of projects that they maintain will stand out in this very saturated mobile games market.

"Some of the concepts we're working on right now are very robust," said Brand. "We've got some really nice game mechanics and monetization structures throughout them. We'd like to think that every game we've worked on has either raised the bar or enhanced a certain genre in some way and we'd like to continue with those Rare ethics."

"We have a concept that's actually partway into development and the rest of our concepts are in paper form and bubbling to the surface. We'll build those out to a bigger business plan and approach publishers with them, that's one of the short-term goals."