Red Octane, the company that manufactures Guitar Hero's peripherals, has yet to offer IGN an explanation or official response. According to Harmonix, it's on Red Octane and publisher Activision. It would seem that unless these two can make nice (and realize that fans are the ones being punished), there will be no patch to remedy this situation.
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
"trying to make do in a way it was never meant to be played"
I disagree. The accessories were a fun gimmick (and very marketable) but they were added AFTER the genre had been well established with games like Frequency and Amplitude (both also made by Harmonix).
The gameplay formula is different on a controller - there's a focus on switching lanes and contributing to all of the instruments.
Never played Frequency, but Amplitude and Rock Band Blitz were really good. I would love to get more of that kind of game. It's basically a different part of the genre, and stands on its own.
The insurmountable difference in popularity between Amplitude and Rock Band proves my point
Popularity isn't proof of quality. If it was, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now. lol. Our disagreement wasn't over which one is more popular. Amplitude and Blitz just aren't "torture" to play.
Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live failed to revive their sub-genre, and Rock Band 4 caused Mad Catz to have to file for bankruptcy. Doesn't mean that instrument-based music games are bad.
It does mean that there's too much overhead and risk for anyone to take a gamble on a big budget game that needs instrument accessories now though.
For the genre to thrive, for now, it needs to do so without the instrument accessories. That's just a fact, unfortunately.
VR games like Beat Sabre (a new sub-genre) and traditional music games make more sense and are more viable right now.
*"If quality is always proved by popularity, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now."
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
The only issue I ever had with any of the hardware was the drum pedal on the original rock band set stared to crack in half. The reason I, and other friends I know who played, lost interest is they weren't putting out new tracks that we were interested in anymore. I think earlier this year I looked through the releases for the last 2 years or so, and there was maybe 3 songs I would have bought.
Yeah I had this happen too with my drum controller, I ended up attaching a metal strip to it which fixed it up nicely.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
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I also got into playing guitar through Guitar Hero and Rock Band. And I know at least three other people who did the same.
Still get Rock Band out a few times a year. I really don't think you can say it failed when they're still bring out DLC every week! They must be making enough money from it to keep the licensing going!
Basically the reason the artist Prince did not want his music on those types of games. As he believed it was better for kids to actually learn to play a real instrument than to play with toys that really did not teach how to read music and how to actually play an instrument correctly.
A lot of music now a days is just done on a sound board and the creator has no real clue if the music was put on a sheet in front of them to play. The term musician has taken on a new meaning in recent times.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Rock band 4 allows controller. Though I just bought RB4 again so I can replay my favorite music rhythm game.
I didn't know that. I haven't played a lot of Rock Band, but have a lot of Guitar Hero, I'll definitely check it out.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
I might have understood this problem had I found out maybe months ago rather than LAST NIGHT! I bought this game this morning (CD only) for my ps3 and my GH3 guitar is not compatible at all. I feel I should let other people know this before they waste their time.
Seriously though, why sell the game independently (no instruments) for the PS3 if you can't use anything other than the Fender guitar that comes in the package? What f'in sense does that make, ESPECIALLY when they don't sell the instruments seperately until Feb. 08?
I'll stop ranting. I'm posting this more as a warning for others. DO NOT BUY THE PS3 VERSION GAME DISC ONLY because there is absolutely no way to play it.
Hmm, I just bought Rock Band and was planning to use the guitar from GH3 with it for bass. I hope they fix it soon, someone needs to let their guitar work on the other one.
I totally agree with you cheez, any uninformed people are going to be pissed when they go out and just buy the ps3 game and not the bundle since they already bought guitar hero. And there are a lot of guitar hero 3 owners out there so Harmonix may want to deal with this before a $hit storm occurs.
If it's any consolation to you, not too many copies of the non-bundle version of Rock Band were going to sell for the PS3 to begin with. This snafu should depress sales of that SKU even further. For the 360 version, which is expected to make up the overwhelming majority of sales, the GH3 controller works just fine.
Email them and complain. Something can be done if enough people complain.
say something like this....
"I am extremely disappointed in you guys because you have said many times over and over again that we would be able to use the Guitar Hero Guitar for Rock Band, however this is not the case for the ps3 version. You can blame it on Red Octaine all you want, but the bottom line is, you need to stop making excuses, this is clearly your fault. It seems to me as if you didnt put any effort into the ps3 version. A patch needs to be made. All you guys had to do is get a developer from red octaine for 20 minutes so you can make the guitar hero guitar work on rockband. Or you could have just gotten the Data emailed to you through Gmail. It works fine on the 360, so why cant you make it work for the ps3? Sony spends a lot of money on making their consoles so you it would be easier for your guys to develop games. A patch needs to be made, otherwise people are just going to buy 3rd party guitars instead of the Rock Band Fender guitars. Studies have shown that 3rd party merchandise will eat into your market share. Thats what I would do IF (and thats a big IF) I buy Rock Band."