Tim Stamper, the co-founder of Rare, conceptualized a gardening game for the handheld Pocket PC platform around 2002.

A small (three-person[1]) team began work on a simple prototype while Rare was still affiliated with Nintendo, prior to its Microsoft acquisition.

[2] The Viva Piñata team was a model for productivity and regular output within Rare and Xbox Game Studios.

Microsoft also transitioned its development teams to use the company's XNA package to streamline and reduce duplication in engineering efforts.

[4] As Rare released the original Viva Piñata for the Xbox 360 in 2006, its development team saw it as incomplete.

[1] In early 2007, a Microsoft Games executive had expressed interest in continuing the series onto the Nintendo DS platform.

4Kids TV had agreed to make a Viva Piñata cartoon before the game was released.