Red Octane VP excuses axe incompatibility, blames Rock Band issues

Alright, try to stay with us here. Guitar Hero III's axe works just fine with Rock Band, but only the Xbox 360 hardware -- and Rock Band's guitar won't play the first note on any flavor of GHIII. Yeah, it's a bit confusing, but apparently the folks over at 1UP were downright tired of being dizzy, and phoned up Guitar Hero publisher Red Octane's co-founder and VP of Business Development, Charles Huang, to chat about the totally confusing compatibility quandary. We fully understand the complexities in getting the instruments to work with other games, as well as the potential business impact, but Mr. Huang chose to take a different route in explaining why no Guitar Hero title would accept a Rock Band controller. He was quoted as saying that Red Octane wasn't "too interested in having [Harmonix] guitars work on its game, because [Harmonix is] having a lot of issues with its guitars." Of course, this logic begins to fall apart when you realize there was absolutely no compatibility even before these malfunctions came to light. Nice try, though.

[Via DailyTech]

[DJP3DRO @ Dec 8th 2007 3:42PM]

Activision blocked out all third-party guitars when they made Guitar Hero 3 - which means it's Activision's fault for most of this mess, not Harmonix's. People need to stop blaming Harmonix for this.

[inksdk @ Dec 10th 2007 1:51AM]

Sorry, your statement is simply false. I bough one more third party wireless guitar for PS2 when I bought Guitar Hero 2 for PS2 last year. I testify that this third party guitar works flawlessly with Guitar Hero 1, 2, 3 for PS2. The user manual of this guitar even clearly indicates that it is not an authorized product of Red Octane.

[Louis @ Dec 8th 2007 4:10PM]

Problems with the guitars? Like the mess that happened when Guitar Hero II came out for the 360.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Dec 8th 2007 4:26PM]

Yeah. Let's look at Red Octane's record:

Xbox X-Plorer: busted whammy bars.
GH3 for Xbox/PS3/Wii: stupid detachable neck doesn't work, so the fret buttons aren't reliable.

Admittedly, RB has had problems with their strummers. A friend had his replaced. I had mine replaced because the tilt sensor doesn't work (which is sporadic on all guitar controllers ever designed, IIRC).

The difference? To get your GH3 guitar replaced takes weeks, and you have no guitar for that time. Whereas EA sent me a new RB guitar in 4 days, and they send you the new one before you send the old one back, so you are never without a guitar.

Activision are just being pricks here. I'm done with the GH3 ukelele, the RB Strat blows it away. Too bad the 360 version isn't wireless, I have the PS3 one and it's great.

Oh, and on top of all this, GH3 just doesn't play right, it's tough to feel "in-sync" with the fret board display and music, whereas RB plays like butter.

[Ceralor @ Dec 8th 2007 8:48PM]

They -do- have a feature to fix the syncing. It's called "HDTV Calibration".

[Rgw4life @ Dec 9th 2007 11:21AM]

Red Octane made all of the Guitar Hero Guitars.

[Ayle @ Dec 8th 2007 4:27PM]

that's bollocks...

[therpham @ Dec 8th 2007 4:40PM]

I'd be happy to pick up Guitar Hero 2 for my 360 to use with my two Rock Band guitars if they released an update to make them work. However, having played Guitar Hero 3 and not liking it one bit, it wouldn't even be worth the money if it were compatible.

[CubeGuy @ Dec 8th 2007 4:47PM]

Where the heck did you score an extra RB guitar?

[therpham @ Dec 8th 2007 5:12PM]

eBay!

[E.D. @ Dec 8th 2007 5:04PM]

Ladies and gentlemen, in light of recent developments, I think it is official: Activision is the new EA, but much worse.

[Bobs @ Dec 8th 2007 9:31PM]

What horrifies me is what EA might be willing to do to get back at #1 worst gaming company of all time.

[Mark @ Dec 8th 2007 10:55PM]

What horrifies me is that Activision just merged with Blizzard.

[Sean Frost @ Dec 8th 2007 5:23PM]

Let's see, GH3 was out a number of weeks before Rock Band. The Activision/Neversoft folks never got a chance to check out the RB guitar before releasing their product. Harmonix/EA had some opportunity to try out the GH3 guitar and either didn't check for PS3 Rock Band compatibility or didn't bother telling anyone about it. They are working on a patch, but it's release was delayed with no info on how long.

[John P @ Dec 8th 2007 6:40PM]

GH3 came out three weeks before Rock Band. Games take years to make, and checking to see if your competitor's guitar works on your product is going to take at least a full week to code and test. And honestly, three weeks before launch is reserved for publishing the game and getting it into store hands.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Dec 8th 2007 7:41PM]

Timing of releases cannot explain why the boot-up screen of GH3 says "This game is only licensed for use with official Guitar Hero controllers."

No, the explanation for that is that Activision are doing this on purpose.

[KHCloud @ Dec 9th 2007 2:21PM]

Or it could do with the fact that Harmonix had worked with Red Octane on GH for the PS2 and 360 but not for the PS3...

[Blacklisted @ Dec 8th 2007 5:41PM]

Had to send my PS3 Rock Band guitar in for repairs -it refused to turn on after the first day of use. EA accidentally sent me two replacement guitars with the same inventory and RMA number.

Free guitar is awesome.

[Jim @ Dec 8th 2007 6:55PM]

I just played Rock Band at Best Buy for the first time. The guitar was awful. Granted, it's being paed 12 hours a day so I understand that. Although, other than its size, I was not impressed at all. It actually felt flimsier than the GH controller. Rock Band is OK but the songs are where it's at. I have GH1, 2, 3 and 80's and would love to get some more downloadable content for my XB360 version of GH3. I also wish that Blockbuster of Hollywood rented the Rock Band game but I understand why they don't, since you need drum, mic, etc. to get the whole effect. I just can't bring myself to pay $60 for a shittier looking game with some awesome songs and some sweet downloadable content in the pipe (Metallica!). Activision, get to work! I want some new track packs and SOON! 3 or more songs of each - Queens of the Stone Age, Priestess, Metllica, Soundgarden, Weezer, Nirvana, Rush, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen... And the list goes on and on and on.

[E.D. @ Dec 8th 2007 7:52PM]

Okay, let's try not to get into too much of a debacle about Rock Band vs GH3 here, but this is the basic jist behind both franchises, pick your favorite:

Guitar Hero 3 is highly competitive, with pretty crazy note charts when you get into level 7 and 8. If you only play these music games to show off, this is your best bet.

Rock Band (created by the devs of GH1, GH2, GH 80's by the way) is centered mainly around the idea of fun before competition. Since it's a band game, they wanted to encourage the feeling of comradeship over competition. The note charts will thus not go into the "inhuman" levels (still, it's as hard as GH2) but lots of stuff based on this comradeship idea is what makes it appeal to me, personally, over GH3: a real rock band world tour instead of levels, band customization, modified and new gameplay mechanics, and, obviously, new instruments.

I'll agree that GH3 has some pretty badass songs if you're not into good ol' classic rock (which is what RB is mainly about), but sooner or later your favorite music genre is bound to show up in Rock Band seeing the amount of DLC.

I think that was pretty fair.

[Jonathan Wilson @ Dec 8th 2007 8:53PM]

I for one refuse to even consider ANY guitar or music game unless they can get some AC/DC songs.
How they can claim to have the "gods of rock" and not have AC/DC I dont know.

[Will @ Dec 8th 2007 9:35PM]

I just want to know what is holding up the Rockband patch. Rumor on the rock band forums is that Actavision legal is holding it up.

[Tigre @ Dec 8th 2007 9:35PM]

Come on you guys are only thinking from a consumers P.O.V. If you owned GH and wanted people to play your game and not the competitors you would do the exact same thing as Activision. They don't want you to play RB... especially the people who opted to wait and see who would come out on top in this genre.

It's a business move and I don't really blame them for taking this route.

[Tiptup300 @ Dec 8th 2007 9:52PM]

Oh yes you can. You can also commend them for not taking this route.

"You cant blame them, they just want money!"

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Dec 9th 2007 10:26AM]

"Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the dogs of war..." - - William Shakespear

[srw985 @ Dec 9th 2007 2:04PM]

So the GH3 guitar works with rock band on 360

The GH2 guitar works with guitar hero 3, so will it work on rock band?

[dizzy @ Dec 10th 2007 11:47AM]

Yes it does

[Rjay @ Dec 9th 2007 3:16PM]

Nerdiest debate of 2007 goes too....

[Moe @ Jan 12th 2008 2:28PM]

Activision comes off as a defeated company with RB out now, their once vaunted GH franchise may be breathing its last breaths with this arrogance as many customers are now turned off. Those customers are less likely if not flat out determined to not buy anymore GH games. All Activision has to realize is allowing controllers to work cross platform and cross game, is beneficial to them as they'll sell more product. I bought GH3 for my PS2 with the wireless controller and this VP wants to talk about tech support issues? lol My wireless Fender is nothing more than a dust collector now, it's a piece of garbage that had to be returned twice to get one that worked and this one is now not working. Harmonix's original guitar is solid and works fine still, if I could use my RB controller on the 360 GH games I would buy them. Since I can't, Activision has already gotten my money but it will be the last they see of it. Wise up Activision, you're coming off far worse than EA normall does.

[SJ @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:05PM]

I think I have an easy solution for all of you:

In the future, use GH equipment for GH and RB equipment for RB. This will save you the hassel and frustration as well as needless posting.