Was Iwata behind Goldeneye XBLA cancellation?

First there was hope that an Xbox Live Arcade version of Rare’s N64 classic Goldeneye

was nearly with us

, then there was the

crushing disappointment

of reality – but now claims have emerged about the real reason for the cancellation of Rare’s nearly complete XBLA project.

Kotaku claims that sources from within Microsoft have told the site that it was not financial wrangling that doomed the project only weeks from extinction – instead, they claim that Nintendo president Saturo Iwata was personally behind it.

Apparently Iwata was uncomfortable with the idea of a Nintendo-only game appearing on a rival’s console. And this is despite the fact that Microsoft was prepared to allow Rare’s back-catalogue to be released on Nintendo’s Virtual Console service as well as on its own network.