Green Day was their #1 requested band for DLC. I think Lego was the only way they were going to get some Warner tracks into Rock Band and was intended to compete with Band Hero as the E-rated music game.
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Bloomberg Rumor: New Rock Band Coming For Next-Gen Consoles
- Thread starter SFenton
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Green Day was their #1 requested band for DLC. I think Lego was the only way they were going to get some Warner tracks into Rock Band and was intended to compete with Band Hero as the E-rated music game.
Trogdor1123
Member
The need to have "The Touch" by Stan Bush... its a must.
PAULINK
I microwave steaks.
Please explain how you are getting this figure. Show your work.
And yes, it's subjective. Rock Band 1 guitars were not of great quality (issues with the strum bar) but Rock band 2 guitars and then on were solid instruments that could take a beating and performed as well or even better than it's guitar hero counter parts. And let's not pretend guitar hero guitars were flawless, because they were not. The gibson les paul (GH3) guitar certainly had it's issues with reliability, can't speak for anything past that.
You may have a preference on whether or not you want a click or soft strum bar, but to claim that people universally chose one over the other over anything than personal preference is simply conjecture.
the rb2 guitar was great.
Where the hell do you get the 150 songs for 50 bucks idea from? That has happened one time, with GH: Van Halen, because even Activision had no faith in that game and just gave it away for free to everyone. As a whole the DLC was prized exactly the same in Rock Band as in Guitar Hero, $2 per song. Guitar Hero was actually more expensive at first because they only let people buy full song packs instead of also making the seperate songs available for download.
And yes, the Rock Band guitars were not good, but you kinda forget the fact that Rock Band (and Guitar Hero later on) had more than just guitars and oh boy, were the Guitar Hero drums terrible. Rock Band guitars just had kind of a weird feel and an odd strumbar, the Guitar Hero drumkit was actually really poorly made. I know people that within three months had already broken two kits and let's not forget the time when Activision showed off World Tour on the E3, only to find that all of their drumkits broke after a day.
Lastly, the main reason for Guitar Hero outselling Rock Band globally was because Guitar Hero had a much bigger player base in Europe, while Rock Band is way more niche over here. That probably has much to do with the fact that EA screwed up the release of Rock Band 1 in Europe big time; the game released almost a full year after the US release and at first you could only buy it in France, Germany, the UK and Spain. I actually had to import RB1 from the UK, which was crazy. In the US Rock Band was much bigger than Guitar Hero, though.
KillerDark
Member
It definitely needs to have dlc from the previous games be able to come forward somehow (without rebuying every single game).
hodayathink
Member
They've already been re-licensing lately (hence certain songs/bands expiring), so the negotiations are already happening, it's just whether or not they would want to pay the extra money needed to add a new system to the already included ones.
They felt like they needed the shelf space, because without it, mainstream consumers tend to forget you exist. Now that we have a much higher uptake in online consoles than we did 5 years ago, I think that the release once and DLC from then out thing could actually work on consoles.
That's what I mean. They're certainly not in dire financial straits, but it still would be almost prohibitively expensive.
Calamari41
41 > 38
I brought my 360 out of storage recently to play through some songs again, and had a great time... but the system fan was like a jet engine for some reason. I'll be first in line to buy a new Rock Band. Just make sure Iron Maiden is there day one and I will be too.
jamesinclair
Banned
Come on, seriously?
Guitar Hero 5: 85 songs
Guitar hero Van Halen: 44 songs
Total songs: 129
Retail Price: $49.99 (new)
Price per song: 38 cents
DLC is a ripoff and its a joke that when Harmonix does it, micro-transactions are ok, but if anyone else does it, theyre evil.
$2 a song is simply absurd, and its what killed the music genre. I pay Spotify $4.99 a month for access to 10 million songs. But Harmonix wants to charge me more than to for 3 songs? GTFO.
falconxcrunner09
Member
Seriously though, what are the chances that it is just a port of RB3 instead off a full fledged RB4? Has Harmonix had any time inbetween 2010 to now? They have been working on Dance Central 1-3, the Fantasia game, Rock Band Blitz and now Amplitude & Chroma.
Also, do they have the money doing a AAA project like RB4 at the moment? Harmonix did have to kickstart Amplitude after all and didn't the Fantasia game do really bad sales wise?
Porting RB3 wouldn't cost that much compared to a big budgeted sequel, and it would be a great way to please fans who are looking for more RB. Maybe add a couple things missing like a true career mode from RB2. I also find it strange that HM is adding new RB3 songs even though they said they would stop a couple years ago...
Also, do they have the money doing a AAA project like RB4 at the moment? Harmonix did have to kickstart Amplitude after all and didn't the Fantasia game do really bad sales wise?
Porting RB3 wouldn't cost that much compared to a big budgeted sequel, and it would be a great way to please fans who are looking for more RB. Maybe add a couple things missing like a true career mode from RB2. I also find it strange that HM is adding new RB3 songs even though they said they would stop a couple years ago...
FlashFlooder
Member
"$2 a song is simply absurd, and its what killed the music genre. I pay Spotify $4.99 a month for access to 10 million songs. But Harmonix wants to charge me more than to for 3 songs? GTFO."
you probably shouldn't be using Rock Band platform as a way of listening to music, then. I agree its a terrible value as a listening platform.
That comparison is absurd.
you probably shouldn't be using Rock Band platform as a way of listening to music, then. I agree its a terrible value as a listening platform.
That comparison is absurd.
But when you only actually like 20 of those 130 songs what's the point? The great thing about rockband's DLC was you could buy exactly what you wanted. Guitar hero's song DLC was £1.50 per song in the uk as opposed to rockbands 99p and the dlc library was awful no where near the kind of selection rockband had. The games also came with ~58-83 songs each which would transfer into the newer games.
you can't compare spotify to the dlc they are very different for obvious reasons.
Acti killed the genre by oversaturating the market with sub-par products.
This would be fine for me, I jsut want something to move my library over to the ps4 so I can ditch my ps3 stuff.
FlashFlooder
Member
I would be perfectly happy with a RB3 port if they refined the song management system just a little bit and charged $20-$40. My existing DLC and gear has to be compatible though, or no deal.
RB3 was damn-near perfect imho
RB3 was damn-near perfect imho
hodayathink
Member
None of those games you mentioned would have required a full team at the time they were made, so you could have had a small team of people working on improvements and refinements to the Rock Band engine while the rest of the team was working on other games. And IIRC, the most expensive part of a new Rock Band isn't actually the cost of development, it's licensing all the songs. So if they were to pull the same thing they did with Dance Central Spotlight (cheap and/or F2P base with little to no songs, with DLC transferring over some how), that would bring down the cost fairly heavily. Not to mention that they could always hook up with a publisher to be able to get the money to make a full-fledged game.
ricen-beans
Member
I just need backwards compatability on my songs. I'll be happy to buy new plastic instruments. IDGAF
Plus now I have kids so they need something new and shiny too. Great father/kids bonding time.
Plus now I have kids so they need something new and shiny too. Great father/kids bonding time.
Again, that happened one time because Activision had no faith in the game. Also, this comparison is absurd since you're comparing on-disc songs to DLC. Rock Band also had disc games that came with 84 songs for $50 (Rock Band 2 had 104 songs, due to a free 20-pack of songs released with the game).
Anyway, comparing Spotify to Rock Band/Guitar Hero DLC is equally absurd. For Spotify the people behind the screens pay a single price for the streaming rights. Rock Band/Guitar Hero songs have months of work put into them and are much more expensive to make and license. In order to create a song for one of those games you need to:
1. Contact the artist or label (or both) and buy the rights for the raw master tracks (which are more expensive and harder to negotiate than just a lossless file of the song)
2. Make an entirely new mix from those raw master tracks
3. Have people chart and beatmap every single note that's played in the song, which requires hours upon hours of listening to the same songs over and over.
(3.5. In the case of Rock Band 3 pro mode, people had to learn how to play the songs and transfer that into a playable chart for the game. IIRC there was one Harmonix podcast where a pro charter explained that when they can't find official sheet music/tabs they had to look at video's of that song played live to deduce how it's actually played. This, of course, takes a crazy amount of time unless you are a music vituoso.)
4. Buy the publishing rights for the songs (those are separate from the rights to acquire the tracks to begin with)
5. Contact Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo to publish the songs on the online stores, which often has to be done at least a month in advance. I believe that only Microsoft allows DLC to be planned at the last minute.
It's crazy to even suggest that something that takes that much work should cost the same as a music streaming service.
Calamari41
41 > 38
Yeah, I didn't think about backwards compatibility. I have so many downloaded songs, it might make more sense to buy an XBone (before I would have otherwise) for backwards compatibility rather than re-download the songs I bought last gen. Shit, the two Iron Maiden packs alone represent $40.
PROh1bited
Banned
Are you stupid? It costs $1.29 to buy songs off of iTunes, and then Harmonix just charges 2, after they've acquired the license, seperated the tracks and made charts for 5 different instruments. You do realize that both the makers of the songs, and Harmonix , have to make a profit off their work.
I have over 1000 DLC on Rock Band 3, hundreds of hours played. It's one of my favorite genre. I love getting together playing my favorite songs.
Give us improved UI, 1080p/60 frames highway, a better way to setup calibration, more realistic graphics, dynamic crowd that cheers after solos and memorable parts, give us different breakneck speed options for those who likes slow and fast highway, let us transfer our old DLC and give us an option to subscribe giving us access to all songs to download at our leisure. If backward instrument compatibility isn't possible, then don't make the next guitars like RB1/RB2, they were horrid compared to Guitar Hero's guitars. Use the Warriors of Rock guitar as a template. I really feel they perfected it with that guitar, and I've been using the same one for the last 4-5 years without it breaking.
Mainly just perfect the game and support it with DLC, and then they don't have to worry about making a sequel until the next generation. Shouldn't be too hard, right...?
I seriously hope not. Commercially a RB3 port instead of a next gen RB4 title would sound underwhelming and most likely turn into a failure. I think people want to see what the next gen of rhythm games have to offer. We have come a long way technologically since RB 3 was released, and there are a lot of cool ideas out there which would improve the genre greatly. Also RB 3 is still suffering from too many issues, they would need to do a complete renovation of the game anyways to make it on par with expectations.
Give us improved UI, 1080p/60 frames highway, a better way to setup calibration, more realistic graphics, dynamic crowd that cheers after solos and memorable parts, give us different breakneck speed options for those who likes slow and fast highway, let us transfer our old DLC and give us an option to subscribe giving us access to all songs to download at our leisure. If backward instrument compatibility isn't possible, then don't make the next guitars like RB1/RB2, they were horrid compared to Guitar Hero's guitars. Use the Warriors of Rock guitar as a template. I really feel they perfected it with that guitar, and I've been using the same one for the last 4-5 years without it breaking.
Mainly just perfect the game and support it with DLC, and then they don't have to worry about making a sequel until the next generation. Shouldn't be too hard, right...?
I seriously hope not. Commercially a RB3 port instead of a next gen RB4 title would sound underwhelming and most likely turn into a failure. I think people want to see what the next gen of rhythm games have to offer. We have come a long way technologically since RB 3 was released, and there are a lot of cool ideas out there which would improve the genre greatly. Also RB 3 is still suffering from too many issues, they would need to do a complete renovation of the game anyways to make it on par with expectations.
PROh1bited
Banned
I have over 1000 DLC on Rock Band 3, hundreds of hours played. It's one of my favorite genre. I love getting together playing my favorite songs.
Give us improved UI, 1080p/60 frames highway, a better way to setup calibration, more realistic graphics, dynamic crowd that cheers after solos and memorable parts, give us different breakneck speed options for those who likes slow and fast highway, let us transfer our old DLC and give us an option to subscribe giving us access to all songs to download at our leisure. If backward instrument compatibility isn't possible, then don't make the next guitars like RB1/RB2, they were horrid compared to Guitar Hero's guitars. Use the Warriors of Rock guitar as a template. I really feel they perfected it with that guitar, and I've been using the same one for the last 4-5 years without it breaking.
Mainly just perfect the game and support it with DLC, and then they don't have to worry about making a sequel until the next generation. Shouldn't be too hard, right...?
I seriously hope not. Commercially a RB3 port instead of a next gen RB4 title would sound underwhelming and most likely turn into a failure. I think people want to see what the next gen of rhythm games have to offer. We have come a long way technologically since RB 3 was released, and there are a lot of cool ideas out there which would improve the genre greatly. Also RB 3 is still suffering from too many issues, they would need to do a complete renovation of the game anyways to make it on par with expectations.
The RB2 Stratocaster was the best. Hated the clicky noise GH guitars would make.
Calamari41
41 > 38
I hated the fact that the buttons on the GH guitars were standalone and separated. I loved how you could easily slide your finger along all of the buttons on the Rock Band guitars. Made it very difficult for me to go back to GH.
jamesinclair
Banned
Care to try that again?
And every other time, 84 songs for $50 is always and always will be a better deal than $2 a song.
Harmonix also loved to release track packs (6 of them) with only 20 songs, and 2-3 games with 40 songs (lego, green day).
And never mind that they got so lazy that they took almost every song they did in GH1, GH2 and GH80s and used them to pad their future releases.
Yay, everybody loves repeats!
Harmonix is an incredibly greedy company and that greed almost cost them their livelihood.
Hopefully this time around they dont fuck it up again.
PAULINK
I microwave steaks.
I get it, you are still going off the assumption that every copy of gh 5 comes with free van halen. That was a promotion that they offered to new buyers for a certain period of time, but is no longer something you can do now. They mailed you the game when it came out. Obviously a great deal (by the way gh 5 was $60 msrp). Van halen was $40 msrp, which basically means if you were not an early adopter, it cost $100 for what you're going on about. Not only that, but Guitar hero van halen was unexportable, and GH 5 only let you export 35 of the 85 songs.
this is where rock band shines, you can export most songs from any on disc game (provided you have an unused code) and pay a small export fee, and have all the songs in one central location. Obviously if you don't care about being inconvenienced about changing discs to play that one song you like from another game, this won't mean anything to you.
But, like I edited in my statement earlier, to call harmonix greedy for offering optional DLC instead of flooding the market with hundreds of track packs with dlc, is straight up ignorant.
Am I the only one that really really liked Lego Rock Band?
First off, the aesthetics were adorable. Who doesn't want to see Lego people be rockstars?
It had my favorite setlist from any of the Rock Band games. It seemed to be much more alternative lighter music. In Too Deep, Ruby, Valerie, Tick Tick Boom, Thunder. Granted these were the songs big while I was in high school, so could be nostalgia talking.
It allowed you to disable the freaking drum pedal. I'm pretty bad at drums, and being able to turn off the drum pedal was a godsend, especially now that my pedal has completely snapped in half. As far as I know this feature didn't appear in any of the other RB games.
First off, the aesthetics were adorable. Who doesn't want to see Lego people be rockstars?
It had my favorite setlist from any of the Rock Band games. It seemed to be much more alternative lighter music. In Too Deep, Ruby, Valerie, Tick Tick Boom, Thunder. Granted these were the songs big while I was in high school, so could be nostalgia talking.
It allowed you to disable the freaking drum pedal. I'm pretty bad at drums, and being able to turn off the drum pedal was a godsend, especially now that my pedal has completely snapped in half. As far as I know this feature didn't appear in any of the other RB games.
I have spoken to many people about the Guitar Hero guitar vs the Rock Band guitar and very few prefer the latter. Also the Rock Band guitar does make a 'clicky' noise with its five buttons, while Guitar Hero makes the clicks on the strum bar which helps many people including me controlling the rhythm, especially during fast strumming and repeating notes. The GH guitar buttons are also much easier to press which helps a lot during fast solos.
That's weird. For me it's the complete opposite. I have tried to play with the RB 2 guitar many times, but sliding with it during solos is just too difficult,since it feels like I need to put in extra pressure that delays my reaction, which is a huge deal when playing the trickier songs.
so dont buy them?
actually yeah. I had those games on ps2 but it was nice to be able to get the sogs for rockband where they used the actual master tracks rather than the songs being a cover, plusthey were fun to play and being able to re-buy them let me transition over to ps3 and get rid of my old GH stuff.
what the hell.
I again ask what's the point in getting 130 songs if you dont like the majority of them?
PAULINK
I microwave steaks.
his argument is quantity over quality, lol.
I liked Lego. Many cool classics, but a tad too light for me as a whole. I think Rock Band should stick with its name and focus on Rock and include more heavier songs as well. Not that we shouldn't use Lego as an inspiration for the easier songs on the setlist.
Calamari41
41 > 38
It's definitely a situation where you need to go with what feels best for you personally. Did Guiter Hero ever end up allowing you to use the Rock Band guitars with it?
I believe the RB2 guitar works on Warriors of Rock at least
jamesinclair
Banned
If you dont like the majority of them, maybe you should reconsider your interest in music games.
Also, having more songs is a great opportunity to explore songs youve never heard of and might be fantastic to play. There are some fantastic songs that are garbage gameplay experiences.
And I pay $7.99 a month for Neflix, but if I want to buy a movie I still need to pay $15-$30 for it. Or, to use your argument... I pay zero for Spotify, so I guess all RB DLC should be free?
PROh1bited
Banned
Repeats? Did Guitar Hero 1,2 and 80's have master tracks, drums and mics? No. You're completely illogical, and you make no fucking sense. Harmonix had DLC every week for over 5 years, and they worked their asses off to keep the genre alive. Your I.Q is very low. We get it.
or i can tailor my song library to the songs I like and enjoy to play?
jamesinclair
Banned
Grow up? Youre on ignore now.
Right, you would, but do you? I havent bought a movie in a decade. Most of my friends are on the same boat. I havent bought a CD in years, have you?
We're in a subscription world now, and if Harmonix thinks they can be successful on an expensive a-la-carte DLC model, well, they just have to look at how they failed last time.
Or, better yet, look at what music games ARE successful. The only music game these days that does well is the Just Dance series, which doesnt rely on DLC at all.
PROh1bited
Banned
You're the one going on about how Harmonix failed with their dlc. No they didn't. Not one fucking bit. You're the one comparing Spotify to rb dlc, which is completely stupid. And yeah, we should get a subscription model for RB4, but you're not helping your case at all.
Could care less you ignored me, now I don't have to see your illogical opinions anymore.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
sörine;152923007 said:
I don't think so. The people who buy the DLC and are heavily invested and would re-invest are still on consoles. The people who bought the wii edition or rockband 2 and nothing else are gone.
There is still a lot of money to be made. Its just not gonna become the phenom it once was. There's a dedicated market that you can make constant money off of with new songs for a long while.
Rock Band released DLC almost weekly for 5 or 6 years that only segmented once and for the last year and half only. That's not a failure. That's probably the most successful DLC strategy ever.
Look at all these failures, 1,692 of them (does TF2 even have that many hats?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_downloadable_songs_for_the_Rock_Band_series
Clearly you're not the market for these games.
Do I buy movies? Of course I do, while also subscribing to Netflix and renting the occasional movie off a digital service (Xbox Video or Cable On-Demand). I buy most of my son's movies on Blu-ray/DVD combos so that we have a copy for home while the DVD goes to the van to watch on the road.
I haven't bought a CD for myself lately as the 500+ I bought when I was younger was enough.jamesinclair said:
For anything I want to listen to now, I will buy individually or listen to on Spotify, Xbox Music or MixRadio (Nokia).
You keep saying this, but the duration of their DLC offerings would suggest that they were successfull. I think many people (myself included) would look to the RB series as an example of DLC done right.jamesinclair said:
Pretty sure my son has asked me to buy several songs as DLC for Just Dance.jamesinclair said:
The console market today isn't what it was from 2008-2010. You mentioned Just Dance as an example of a modern dlc music game strategy but that franchise has been flopping hard on PS4 and One. It's even doing better on the lowly Wii U yet.
I'm not sure a $60 disc/$2 per song approach is enough to even sustain things today much less provide an actual lucrative dedicated niche. And that's before we even get into the plastic instruments. This feels risky without a complete price model overhaul, and at that point you'd be better served following the casuals to devices that actually use.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
sörine;152930744 said:
I don't think Just Dance is a good model for rock band. Its not the same people who would be buying this.
Sure it was. Guitar Hero and Rock Band weren't selling mainly to the core.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
I keep reading this thread's title as "Bloodborne rumor" and getting really excited and then really disappointed.
Since they had to license all the music, I'd say all the money they made off the game was from the sale of the plastic instruments. Once everyone had instruments, there no longer was a profitable market for the games. I think by Christmas 2016 consumers are going to be Jonesin' for another plastic guitar revolution. I can't wait!
PROh1bited
Banned
Imru al-Qays;152931335 said:
The game comes out next month. You should be excited.
JeTmAn81
Member
I'd love a new Rock Band, but I don't know if I could get on board without my previous-gen DLC transferring. It was practically the only DLC I bought on my 360. Of course, I guess that would mean I'd need to buy an Xbone to transfer it, so maybe I'd just stick with old Rock Band.
On 360, every GH after Aerosmith supported all the RB gear.
I remember people mentioning it was a bit of a clusterfuck on Wii due to staggered releases and no patches.
And Harmonix had to hold back a patch on PS3 for RB1 at one point to add GH guitar compatibility until they resolved their issue with Activision.
Constantine81
Banned
The market was over saturated with these rhythm based instrument games. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a fact. Activision in particular flooded the industry with them. The last Rock Band release was in 2012 and the last Guitar Hero release was 2010, and that wasn't even Guitar Hero, it was DJ Hero. I will act for a second that they aren't good games, in comparison to other games. All it really boils down to is playing fake instruments along to music you've already heard. I don't get the appeal of it. Obviously, I'm in a minority here I will say that. But I think it's much more rewarding, and entertaining, to play an actual instrument, not sit around and play pretend.
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