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Rockband or GHIII - Want both, you're getting screwed |
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Shino
Fade into this fantasy, caught in the web of time
Age: 49
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 Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:23 am Post subject: Rockband or GHIII - Want both, you're getting screwed |
Looks like Harmonix used the PS3/360 open controller standard to make their perifs. But Neversoft/Activision did not.
So it seems as if the perferals of one won't work on the other.
Sucks big time.
However, the 360 GHII guitar works on both game apparently.
I'm not sure how the hell that works. But from what it sounds, Neversoft/Activision is making it so that they controllers for one won't work on the other.
| 1up wrote: |
Guitar, Interrupted
The messy politics of controller compatibility and competing IPs.
By Patrick Klepek, 10/25/2007
UPDATE: To make it clear, we are not saying the Guitar Hero III controller won't work in Rock Band, but the lack of confirmation from anyone involved has made us suspicious, especially considering Rock Band definitely doesn't work. As soon as we're able to get hands-on with the controller and provide absolute confirmation, we will. Several users are reporting that IGN provided such confirmation in a podcast, but we don't have a link to verify just yet. If you can help, hit the comments!
ORIGINAL STORY: Starting with the release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (a few weeks ahead of Rock Band's November 20 date), gamers will have to make a choice about which rock star-imitating title to align with -- or pony up double the money to participate in both experiences. The companies involved are shaping the impending musical battle to be a one-or-the-other affair for gamers, with a hush-hush mentality falling over guitar compatibility between the two games with almost identical gameplay interfaces.
If you purchase Rock Band, you cannot use that controller in Guitar Hero III -- technically, players can navigate the menus but actual gameplay is completely broken -- and we've heard there are absolutely no plans for Red Octane, Neversoft and Activision to release a patch implementing support after launch. On the flip side, if you purchase Guitar Hero III's bundle, there's a very good chance you cannot use that controller in Rock Band. We don't have the Guitar Hero III peripheral on-hand to provide absolute confirmation, but no one would confirm support to 1UP -- we asked both sides for confirmation of a simple yes or no to compatibility -- so it makes sense.
There is one positive to the situation. If you already own the Xbox 360 Explorer bundled with Guitar Hero 2, that will work in both games -- we've personally tried it. Given that Rock Band developer Harmonix worked hand-in-hand with Red Octane on developing the Explorer, it's hardly surprising.
Red Octane declined to comment when contacted about this story. When asked why, the company refused to elaborate, but the issue of compatibility is a thorny issue for all parties involved. Harmonix, however, did issue 1UP a statement that seems to point the finger squarely at Red Octane, Neversoft and Activision:
"Harmonix develops and bases all of our games, guitars and other peripherals on open standards established by platform manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony. Rock Band is no exception and supports an open controller standard," said a Harmonix spokesperson. "Guitar controllers are like any other standard game controller -- -the controller sends a signal back to the game depending on the buttons you push. If a third party game controller is based on open standards, then it should work with Rock Band as well."
This would suggest that Guitar Hero III's interface doesn't use the open standards provided by Microsoft and Sony. The conspiracy theory would suggest Guitar Hero III purposely implements a closed controller standard so it can only properly interface with the peripherals specifically designed for it. That makes sense, as Rock Band is the biggest competition Guitar Hero faces this holiday season and purposely locking out a rival's peripheral directly forces consumers to choose one or the other -- a convenient option given that Guitar Hero III ships ahead of Rock Band.
"If certain controllers do not work with Rock Band, questions about those controllers should be directed to the peripheral manufacturer. In addition, we welcome any 3rd party software that wishes to support Rock Band guitars. If a 3rd party guitar / music game does not support the Rock Band guitar controller, questions regarding this should be directed to the game manufacturer," said Harmonix.
Harmonix appears to be implying that if the folks behind Guitar Hero III asked for their controller to work in Rock Band, they would oblige. That makes sense for a new music IP that's more interested in establishing itself as the de facto music game, not necessarily the go-to guitar peripheral. 1UP invited Red Octane to respond to Harmonix's statement, but we never heard back -- something less encouraging than a "no comment," as they're deliberately ignoring the opportunity to set the record straight -- and we've heard less than encouraging remarks about any future cooperation between the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises.
Further complicating matters is that no individual Rock Band peripheral SKUs will be available when Rock Band launches next month. Instead, only the game or $169.99 package with game, guitar, microphone and drum set are coming in 2007, with individual instruments sold separately early next year. Very few reasons have been given for why the bundle is the only option -- there are many who just want the solo guitar experience and that's not an option for them, unless they, ironically, buy Red Octane's guitars -- and no one involved with Rock Band has provided anything more than vague promises for when individual packages will arrive.
If it's a question of retail shelf space, why not restrict sales to online ordering for now? "The highest priority is to make sure that as many people as possible can have the multi-instrument band experience this holiday," said Harmonix co-founder and CEO Alex Rigopulos in an interview with Next-Gen published last week. "We are working diligently to get individual instruments into the channel as soon as humanly possible and we have a huge effort in place to make this happen."
Sorry, Alex, but that doesn't really answer the question. The earlier release date for Guitar Hero III, a nearly confirmed software lock-out and inability for consumers to create their Rock Band experience a la carte is a bit of a mess for Harmonix and co. With that in mind, if you don't already own the Guitar Hero 2 Explorer and want the new-and-improved (and far better, from our experience) peripherals with Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band and actually play all the associated games, the numbers really starts to add up:
# Rock Band (bundle) -- $169.99
# Guitar Hero III (bundle) -- $99.99
# Total Cost: $269.98
All told, that's more expensive than purchasing a Wii.
You'd think that embracing and open standard for the guitars -- these are not vastly different game experiences we're talking about here -- would simply encourage gamers to pick up both games and everyone wins, but given the emphasis on downloadable content as the future of music games, locking gamers into one franchise through a peripheral makes sense from a business perspective, even if it does end up screwing over the people they're all fighting over: gamers. |
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Aiman
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| Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:50 pm Post subject: |
Holy shit!
If GH3 has a locked software for the peripheral, then it makes sense why the GH2 guitar is sluggish in responding at times. They tried to think outside the box to close in the box themselves, but they just closed the box and didn't really look at the whole picture. Now the GH2 guitar plays sluggish in GH3, and people like me are not paying $100 for a bundle with a guitar that I already have! |
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Ultrawolf
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| Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject: |
Um well I haven't had a problem hitting notes. Maybe some kind of HD lag or something on your TV? |
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Tobias
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| Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject: |
yea...my controller doesn't give me any problems. |
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Aiman
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| Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject: |
| Tobias wrote: | | yea...my controller doesn't give me any problems. |
Funny, I was talking to someone in another forum and he said he experienced the same thing I did in a demo at EB, but at his place it was alright.
And for the HD lag, makes some sense, but even after calibration, the gameplay was sluggish at best. I did enjoy The Metal.  |
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Shino
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| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 8:54 am Post subject: |
I had no problem hitting the notes in the demo with my 360 GH2 guitar.
I'm going to hold off on GH3 until I can get just the disk. I think I'll get it for 360 if I can't use the Rock band stuff on it. |
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| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 8:56 am Post subject: |
Found this on another forum. Thought I'd share.
| Quote: | Guitar Compatibility Test
Which games will your guitar controller work with?
by Erik Brudvig
October 26, 2007 - The rise of the music rhythm game has been meteoric, thanks in no small part to the success of the Guitar Hero franchise on PS2 and Xbox 360. Taking the plunge is a big investment, though, with expensive and bulky controllers creating a serious stopgap for potential buyers. This fall, two games are releasing that feature their own new guitar controllers, Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3. That puts a total of 3 guitar controllers on the market. IGN has now tried out the three of them in every situation possible. Here's the rundown.
The Guitar Hero 2 Xplorer controller works with everything. We tried it out with Rock Band, Guitar Hero 2 and Guitar Hero 3 on Xbox 360 with no issues whatsoever. The only drawback to this controller, aside from its wired status and button placement, is that you can not activate any of the extra guitar effects featured in Rock Band. For that, you'll need the Rock Band Stratocaster.
The Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul also works with everything and also can't be used to activate the Rock Band special effects. We tried it on Rock Band and played through roughly 10 songs without any hitches. Of note here is that the Guitar Hero 3 PS3 controller can't be used with Guitar Hero 2, even with the disc put into a PS3 that should make it backwards compatible.
The Rock Band guitar is another story. This controller, which features a number of extra fret board buttons and an effects switch, does not work with Guitar Hero 2 or 3. Cycling through the menus works just fine, but as soon as the game begins it all breaks down. Buttons don't register at all and the game is impossible to play. In addition to the extra buttons, it has one other advantage while playing Rock Band. During extended "jam" sessions of the game where you can press any buttons you want to boost up your score, you don't have to strum when using the Rock Band Strat. With the Guitar Hero 2 or 3 controllers, strumming is required.
You can't buy Rock Band without getting the guitar in the bundle this holiday season, though you can get Guitar Hero 3 without the wireless Les Paul. To that end, it seems that the only real decision people who want both games have to make is whether to get the Les Paul or stick with the Guitar Hero 2 Xplorer.
We haven't been able to test the PS3 Rock Band Stratocaster with Guitar Hero 2 or 3 just yet.
It should be noted that things may change before Rock Band is released as the game and, perhaps, the controller aren't finalized. We went to Harmonix and RedOctane/Activision for official word.
Activision had no comment at the time of this publishing, though promised one in the near future as it is still being put together. A Harmonix Spokesperson gave this statement to IGN:
"Harmonix develops and bases all of our games, guitars and other peripherals on open standards established by platform manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony. Rock Band is no exception and supports an open controller standard. Guitar controllers are like any other standard game controllers--the controller sends a signal back to the game depending on the buttons you push. If a third party game controller is based on open standards, then it should work with Rock Band as well. If certain controllers do not work with Rock Band, questions about those controllers should be directed to the peripheral manufacturer. In addition, we welcome any 3rd party software that wishes to support Rock Band guitars. If a 3rd party guitar / music game does not support the Rock Band guitar controller, questions regarding this should be directed to the game manufacturer.
The official Rock Band guitars and peripherals are custom designed to help players to blur the line between playing a game and being in a band. Harmonix has modeled the guitar on a Fender Stratocaster and engineered the strum bar so it feels like you are playing a real guitar. We have ten fret buttons--5 on the top and 5 on the bottom---and have even built in a five-way effects switch that interacts with the game. Obviously the players have a choice, but we truly feel that once they play Rock Band with the Stratocaster, they will not want to use any other guitar controller."
We'll update this story when we receive official word from the other side of this affair
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Ultrawolf
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| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:23 pm Post subject: |
I went to bestbuy and they had a Rockband setup with drums, strat and mic. I tried out the drums and guitar and it was pretty fun except it took some major getting used to the strat timing, I don't know if there was lag present but you can't play it the same way you play Guitar Hero at all. The only reason the lag is questionable is because the drum kit worked and timed perfectly fine. |
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Aiman
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| Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:30 pm Post subject: |
So, I heard that the Rock Band from PS3, you cannot play with buddies online. It's all random. The 360, you can invite people from your buddy list. If this is true, I will be getting it for 360, because what is the point of getting the PS3 if the chance of playing with your buddies is slim to none.
So, I'm gonna check it out. A friend of mine is sending me the link soon, so I'll post it when I get it. |
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Shino
Fade into this fantasy, caught in the web of time
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| Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: |
I don't think it's all random.
I just think there's not an invite system like Live has.
You can still create a room and lock it so only your friends can get in I think. |
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