Guitar Hero World Tour Equipment Problems, Subscription Possibilities?

Guitar Hero: World Tour's recent launch saw boxes of plastic instruments flying off store shelves, quickly selling out in many areas. Unfortunately, many players reported problems with the bundled drums sets, prompting Activision to release a drum "tuning" application and a free midi-USB cable to connect the instruments to a PC. Otherwise, reviews for the game have been largely positive, and MTV's Multiplayer Blog did an analysis of using Rock Band drums in GH:WT, and vice-versa. Kotaku looked at which set was louder, coming to the conclusion that while they sound different, decibel levels are very similar. The early success in sales for GH:WT caused Activision to say holiday demand may not be met, and that they're examining two methods in particular to develop the franchise: instrument upgrades (hopefully less ludicrous than Logitech's $250 axe) and the possibility of a subscription-based model for user-generated content. "[Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby] Kotick says that there are now 25,000 user generated tunes that have been created for the game, and projected 'up to 100,000 songs' by the end of this year."

What happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is slashdot into slashvertising so much now? It used to be "news for nerds", not news for wanna-be-jukebox-heroes. All the articles of late, and not so late, to put it mildly, is "news for newbies". Anyone with a 6th-grade education would feel right at home here. And are. Grow (back) up slashdot.

Re:pay us money to help us profit from your work

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points, that would be insightful!

Re:Drumset

[Smauler]

Wait... is the game that good to justify hundreds of dollars for one instrument? AFAICT, most people play it for 1/2 an hour and get bored of it. Now, I'm not saying you didn't here..... but a little perspective may be in order.

Re:Drumset

[pimpimpim]

As it seems from the ion drum website, these are actual electronic drums that you can also hook up to a drum computer (at least one of the same brand). I guess that makes more sense than buying a $250 guitar without snares.

Re:$250? Pussies

[meringuoid]

I've owned a guitar that was about $300 cause it was "arcade style"

When a simulation costs more than the real thing, surely you've got to wonder if there's a problem.

Re:Drumset

[Aalst]

If you're really serious about drumming in Guitar Hero or Rock Band 1 or 2, you should consider buying a proper electronic kit (any kit with MIDI out) together with a MIDI adapter.

Here are two choices of adapters:
http://www.rockband.com/users/sethmeisterg/gallery [rockband.com]
http://www.bytearts.com/midi/index.htm [bytearts.com]

Re:User-generated content to cost?

[AndyBusch]

But keep in mind that the GHTunes are basically a handful of MIDI files (one for each instrument). This is a far far smaller bandwidth burden than the store tracks which contain a compressed audio track for guitar, bass, drums, vocals (maybe?), and one for everything else.

Make sure you try my #1 hit

[wernox1987]

Achievment Unlocked - how many of those songs are just people uploading random trash to add 5 points to their e-peen (just like I did)

Re:User-generated content to cost?

[Theoboley]

Or you could just take the time to create the song of your choice in the in game editor. That fact in itself will drive me to buy GH:WT. I want to make some In Flames songs for the guitar.

Re:World Tour has best equipment hands down

[geekoid]

"My girlfriend is a pro drummer and guitar player and she agrees that the World Tour instruments are best."

Maybe that's the problem..it's too much like a real drum and not a game controller.

SO it isn't just your opinion, it's you and your girlfriends opinion, with a touch or argument from authority tossed it.