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Impressed by what they saw, Nintendo upped its investment to 49 percent of the company with hopes that the Stampers could spin CGI gold out of their catalog of characters. Nintendo discovered that this was because the company had invested its Battletoads money into Silicon Graphics workstations that vaulted the studio into the technical elite of its day. Run by brothers Chris and Tim Stamper, the company had made a splash with the previous NES system with their popular Battletoads game, but had been mostly quiet during the 16-bit era.
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Looking beyond its horizons, the company decided to purchase a 25 percent share in a British company known as Rare. Nintendo could stand to lose bloodthirsty teenagers, but not kids. More than the bloodiness and gore of Mortal Kombat, Nintendo worried about a game that had come out the previous year on the Genesis: the adaptation of Disney’s Aladdin, which looked and felt like an interactive cartoon.
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