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]

For all the innovation that the "new-gen" of consoles have brought us, there's one thing that will apparently never change: ridiculously over-priced accessories. Giving the wireless Guitar Hero III controller a feature it should have had from the get go is the $19.99 single recharge kit, which removes the need to use and dispose of single-use batteries. This continues on from the precedent that Microsoft set with its wireless controller, which only comes bundled with a case to stick a couple of AA batteries inside. You can grudgingly pick up this necessary but over-priced accessory on October 31st from Red Octane's store.

We're not quite ready to consider this a coincidence, but the hard-working souls over at Red Octane have officially unleashed a patch for the malfunctioning Guitar Hero II axes just in time for the weekend. Recently, it was claimed that axes sporting 95065 and 95055 model numbers could lose responsiveness in the whammy bar, but thanks to Xbox Live, users can download the patch and get back to unadulterated rockin' right away. So what are you waiting for? Finish up those finger exercises, fire up your console, and let us know if in fact the downloadable solution mends the problem.

[Via Joystiq]

In case you haven't been following the virtual rock and roll scene lately, videogame publisher Red Octane recently revealed that there would be no wireless ax for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II -- even though owners of a "last-gen" console, PlayStation 2, will be able to jam out sans tether. Now since the 360 already ships with wireless technology on board, it would seem relatively simple to implement a cable-free controller for this particular deployment. Not so fast, says Red Octane. According to the studio, Microsoft isn't actually allowing third-party manufacturers to make anything using its proprietary wireless standard -- so while the capability is there, the all-important green light from Redmond is not. It's not clear at this point why a year-old system is being stifled by this seemingly arbitrary restriction, but with the PlayStation 3 offering developers Bluetooth out of the box, it seems that Microsoft either needs to change its tune or risk losing the small-but-vocal "rocker wannabe" demographic to the enemy.

[Via Joystiq]