Some new details have been unearthed about GoldenEye for XBLA. Sources within Microsoft who were very close to the project have told Kotaku that the game was not cancelled because of monetary disagreements between Microsoft and Nintendo as reported earlier, but because Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata believes that a game which originally appeared on a Nintendo system should not appear on a competitor’s machine.

Apparently Microsoft has suggested to Nintendo that GoldenEye, along with other unnamed Rare games, could be released on Wii’s Virtual Console as well. But Nintendo doesn’t seem to be interested.

GoldenEye is considered to be one of the best first-person shooters of all time and a lot of people really want to see it released on XBL Arcade. A petition for the games’ release has been started which at the time of writing has already garnered over 12,000 signatures.