Sources are whispering to us that the future of Microsoft studio Rare could be tied to their development of Kinect Sports 2. While the game has been rumored in development for some time, it still remains unannounced at this point; but the sequel is likely since the release of the first title was a key launch title for Kinect.

From the shadows we do hear, however, that Rare needs to really knock it out of the park this time around, as the studio has been plagued by string of mediocre preforming titles since Microsoft acquired the developer. This most recently led to a major restructuring, along with the rumored cancellation of Kameo 2 and Perfect Dark 2 which were both rumored to be in the pipeline.

While the studio has had a number of very successful titles in the past and has contributed significantly to the development of the Avatar interface for Xbox Live (as well as being very involved in the development of Kinect), it seems that this alone isn’t enough for Microsoft.

We suppose that if you had to make a Kinect Sports 2 game, Rare would be the studio to do it, and they have learned much from the first time around. We do think that Rare can really be successful with a Kinect Sports 2 release, as Kinect owners are crying for new releases and there does seem to be a window here for success. Still, we would have preferred instead if they were putting their efforts into a Perfect Dark 2 release.