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Music Game Genre On the Decline 225

Posted by Soulskill from the wait-until-theremin-hero-comes-out-for-natal dept.
After enjoying several years of popularity, music games seem to be drawing less and less interest from gamers lately. Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles have been conspicuously absent from a list of the 20 best-selling software titles in the past two months, and one report estimates that revenue from those games has dropped by almost half. Analyst Jesse Divnich suggests that there's no longer much room for dramatic improvements in game play, saying, "it would be erroneous to assume that any franchise or brand can grow unless it brings something new to the table. After a while, utility to the gamer will diminish and he/she will surely move on." Nevertheless, the companies are happy to continue to rely on DLC sales while working on new releases. Harmonix is showing off a trailer and a partial set list for The Beatles: Rock Band, and Neversoft has detailed a number of new features and tracks for Guitar Hero 5.
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Music Game Genre On the Decline More

Music Game Genre On the Decline

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  • Bagpipe Hero? (Score:5, Funny)

    by starglider29a ( 719559 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:04PM (#28783829)
    Should I stop development of Bagpipe Hero? I JUST got the rights from AC/DC for "It's a Long Way to the Top (If you wanna rock and roll)"
  • Their new feature? "Challenges" aka achievements...

  • And as usual... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) * <slashdot&uberm00,net> on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:05PM (#28783857) Homepage Journal

    Some innovative company will emerge with a new concept nobody's thought about, and we'll be hooked on that for a while.

    There is no "perfection". There are only new concepts, and there's an unlimited supply of them.

    • I still like Ms. Pac-Man. If ever a perfect arcade game was designed, this is it. It's challenging but not so hard as to scare people off. It's easy to learn and plays fair (no rubberbanding like those cheating race games). And it has cool neon vsuals and otherworldy sound effects that draw the player into a world different from our own.

      Runnerups - Space Invaders, Missile Command, DDR

      • "I still like Ms. Pac-Man. If ever a perfect arcade game was designed, this is it. It's challenging but not so hard as to scare people off. It's easy to learn and plays fair (no rubberbanding like those cheating race games). And it has cool neon vsuals and otherworldy sound effects that draw the player into a world different from our own."

        I dunno, my vote for best ever arcade game design: Robotron [wikipedia.org] . Only had 2 joysticks for controls...easy to learn, but, hard to master.

        To this day, I get tennis elbow fr

  • Too much cost... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Last_Available_Usern ( 756093 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:08PM (#28783901)
    It doesn't help that the controllers cost an arm and a leg. In tough economic times, if I have to choose between 3 or 4 games and one game with it's proprietary controllers....guess what, I'm getting the former.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by joocemann ( 1273720 )

      I agree. You know what I saw, though? Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for $20 on sale at KMART!. Thats a full real quality GH guitar for 20 bucks plus you get w/e crapola Aerosmith songs come with it (please don't think I'm some Aerosmith fan troll, it is just kinda obvious that most people share my same opinion of their music since it was $20).

      But, yes. Given a choice, I'd rather buy a new game than a second guitar, or a replacement guitar since it seems to wear out much sooner than expected when people are re

      • Gamestop had that and a few other new Guitar Hero bundles with guitar for $20 and free shipping. Looks like they're not there anymore, I'm glad I got it a few weeks ago.

        I'm guessing they made WAY too many of the "damn plastic guitars" (rant on the VGN podcast) and sold them to various outlets to sell on clearance. Well, I'm happy, since I wasn't going to pay the original price anyway. $20 for a game is about my limit (I've gone slightly over that a few times). So I get a lot of greatest hits games or on

    • Re:Too much cost... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eln ( 21727 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:28PM (#28784245)
      The controllers are a barrier to entry to the genre to begin with, but after that you already have them so they don't enter into the equation. Personally, I don't like that they charge full new game prices (40 or 50 bucks a pop without the controllers) for new versions of the games when those new versions are essentially the exact same game with some new songs. I don't know how much more innovative they can get with the gameplay aspect, but charging a bunch of money for what should be an add-on pack just seems like they're milking the franchise for all it's worth, which can be a turnoff to consumers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by qoncept ( 599709 )
        Buying the new version of the game is a much cheaper way to get a boatload of songs than buying "add-on pack" DLC. Downloading a song is $2+, while you can get a game with 80 songs for $60 new. And the controller prices really aren't that unreasonable. $30 for a guitar controller? What does a wireless Xbox 360 controller go for?

        I'm assuming, with DLC, they're making plenty of money. I'd guess the profit margins on the controllers are modest at best.
      • Yes, but how many games from this genre do you need. after a while, they are all the same. I guess it's the same a buying the EA Sports NHL game every year. A lot of people do that. Although I never saw much need for it. Kind of a waste of money. I don't think I have need for more than 1 hockey game for each console.

      • The controllers are a barrier to entry to the genre to begin with, but after that you already have them so they don't enter into the equation.

        Seriously, once you're good at music beat games the controllers wear out and / or break after several months. The whammy bar will snap, the clicker will become unresponsive, the drum pad cracks, the pedal cracks in half, etc... The controllers take a lot of wear on the expert setting on the more advanced songs.

        Luckily for me, I don't play them as much since guitar hero metallica was released. I really only break it out when I'm drinking with friends. As has been said, the game only goes so far until

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rm999 ( 775449 )

      I'd agree with you if Rock Band hadn't sold one billion dollars worth of games during the current recession. Given that, revenue being down 50% is still very impressive for a video game franchise.

      That said, you are partially right. According to this article (http://stuff.tv/news/Guitar-Hero-and-Rock-Band-sales-down-but-downloads-soar/12842/), now that people have their hardware, and now that the innovation in games has ended, people are downloading tons of games. So the equipment is a barrier to entry, but

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Turken ( 139591 )

      Music controllers are quite cheap if you don't mind being a game or two behind the latest and greatest. Just last week I bought a set of Rock Band instruments from sam's/walmart for -$8 (clearance bundle at Sam's Club for $22 from which I returned the unopened software to walmart for $30 store credit). Granted, it was only cheap because I got the last ps3 bundle in stock while the 360 bundles were still $80.

      Once the Beatles version comes out, I expect to see some crazy deals on the RB2 hardware as well.

  • Poor song selection (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Klobbersaurus ( 796024 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:08PM (#28783907)
    Guitar hero needs more Buckethead, less Elton John.

    • Re:Poor song selection (Score:5, Funny)

      by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:26PM (#28784209) Homepage Journal

      Yes, less fun music and more boring, pointlessly technical bullshit that only people who subscribe to Guitar magazine care about is precisely what the music games are missing! You know, the same assholes who say "why play Guitar Hero when you can just play a real instrument?" Yeah, those are a rich demographic for your music game. Better court those dudes aggressively with a heavy dose of Yngwie Malmsteen and Eric Johnson.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by T Murphy ( 1054674 )
        Fork it into one game with a focus on mainstream music and one with a technical focus. I understand the camp that just wants fun songs that people recognize- they're great for casual play and parties. I'm in the camp that plays games for the challenge and I listen to music that tends to be more technical (Dream Theater). If not for the game, Guitar Hero would mean to me the G3 tour- Buckethead and Eric Johnson are the only GH songs I've played that are from G3 guitarists. I get that focusing on the technic

  • Here's an idea... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:10PM (#28783931)

    How about a game called "Bong Champion"? They could make controllers which are shaped like 2-foot bongs, and they could show onscreen representations of your character toking fat bong hits, as controlled by the inspiration presure sensor in the bong controller, as activated by a "lighter switch" on the bong-troller.

    When the player gets tired and stops sucking, the on-screen character could be shown as passing out. When a player sucks for more than x seconds, he or she can get "puke power" and double points after their on-screen player pukes all over the place.

    Alternately, there could be a hidden mini-game called "fellatio" champ. Use your imaginations :) Except for religious pussies, they have no imagination and they'd be best left to playing pin the tail on the donkey with mommy nearby to make sure that the punch stays non-alcoholic.

    -- Ethanol fueled

  • Trends for only 2 months ? Shortsighted. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedK ( 112790 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:10PM (#28783933)
    What's been released in the last 2 months ? Guitar Hero : Smash hits ? It's basically a rehash of already released content, you can't expect record sales from that. The last big release in the genre was Guitar Hero : World Tour/Rock Band 2, and that was late last year. Big article about nothing if you ask me.

    • Not to mention that the retail sales should be smaller than last year due to fewer bundles being sold (since everyone that wants the controllers already has them). Add that we're in a recession and game sales as a whole are down, and that this study doesn't include digital song download revenue (at $2 a pop!); this is a non-story.

  • Good riddance. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by FiloEleven ( 602040 )

    Don't get me wrong--I enjoy extended Guitar Hero sessions with friends as much as the next guy, so I'm glad it exists. But it seems to me that if you're interested enough in playing music to spend hours on a simplified simulator, you might as well buy a cheap guitar / bass / drum kit and do it for real. It's not quite as easy, but it's far more rewarding and you aren't limited to playing other people's songs.

    • Re:Good riddance. (Score:5, Funny)

      by plams ( 744927 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:27PM (#28784225) Homepage
      The gameplay of GarageBand [apple.com] is way more realistic than Rock Band! The sheer number of jarring sounds it can make when you suck at guitar is immense!. However, the graphics is somewhat bland in comparison.
      • Bland in comparison??? I don't think I've seen GarageBand played before but I have a hard time imagining that it'd have worse graphics. Is it done in a top down perspective like say the original Zelda?

    • Why play any game at all when most of them are just simulators for stuff you can also do in real life?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fulminata ( 999320 )
      Why does someone always bring this up? It's a game, not a simulator!

      If I wanted to learn how to play a guitar, then I'd pick up a guitar. I just want to have some fun with my friends playing a game that happens to include music we like.

      Please, stop acting as if people are using these games as a substitute for playing music, they're not. If all the music games were to suddenly disappear overnight, people would not go out and buy real instruments, they'd simply play a different game.

      • Why does someone always bring this up? It's a game, not a simulator!

        The two are not exclusive. The closer to the real world a game gets, the more on the simulation end of the spectrum it lies. An FPS is more of a sim than a 2D platformer. Sports games are almost all simulation. You're telling me that a game with guitar-shaped controllers played like guitars, a drum set that is identical in form and function (if not quality or expressiveness) to a professional electric drum kit, a real microphone, and gameplay in which the music for your instrument cuts out when you scre

    • I'm sick of everyone saying this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LockeOnLogic ( 723968 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:41PM (#28784453)
      I'm a musician, I've been playing for as long as I can remember. And all my musician jackass friends snidely say this exact same thing to people who are good at rock band, and it has started to irritate me. Guitar hero is not playing music, and the skills do not transfer as people seem to think. Pressing buttons while holding your hands in a similar position as when playing a guitar gives you zero indication of musical ability or any positive benefit for your playing. It only shows you can move your fingers in time with a beat, but thats where the similarity ends. Its like me saying "oh fly fishing you wave a big wooden stick and baseball you do the same! Fisherman should be good at baseball!"

      Don't get me wrong, I think these games are fun as hell even though I don't own them. I love when a friend has rock band and we all knock back a few and rock out, cheap easy fun. But don't dellude yourself, rock band will do little to lessen the years it takes to be able to play live with people and not make horrible noise. That being said, I respect people who are really good at it becase although i'm a pretty decent guitarist, I can't do those nutso songs on expert. And my friends are wrong to presume I should be able to.

      • Re:I'm sick of everyone saying this (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DdJ ( 10790 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:20PM (#28785115) Homepage Journal

        Pressing buttons while holding your hands in a similar position as when playing a guitar gives you zero indication of musical ability or any positive benefit for your playing. It only shows you can move your fingers in time with a beat, but thats where the similarity ends.

        As a non-musician, let me tell you about one other thing these games have done for me.

        I never used to do any decomposition of music before. I listened to the whole piece as if it were one monolithic, inseparable thing.

        Playing these games has taught me to decompose music in various ways. For one thing, the game forces me to separate out what the guitar is doing from what the drums are doing from what the bass is doing, and now that has become a part of my normal listening habits. For another thing, I'm more aware of the linear structure of a song, the chorus, the bridging pieces, the solos, et cetera.

        It may not be much, but for me at least, there's been some musical benefit.

        • Re:I'm sick of everyone saying this (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Aqualung812 ( 959532 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:46PM (#28785487)
          I couldn't agree more about listening to music in a new way. I *thought* I loved music before as a non-musician, but I have a whole new ear to everything that was old after playing these rhythm games.

          Also, drumming and singing in these games DOES translate to reality, at least to some extent. Singing greatly does, and anyone that can get 98-100% on the hardest drum level can at least pound out a steady beat with a symbol, snare, and kick with real drums.

          I'm not claiming that they'll be Neil Peart [wikipedia.org], but they make something that sounds like music.

          Someone that picks up a real guitar after being a GH badass will sound like crap, period.

        • Sorry I didn't mean to imply that there was no music at all in it, it is a music based game afterall. Hell, just inspiring people to pick up the guitar its a great thing. I'm glad you are learning some basic music analysis from, never really thought of it from that angle. Still though, that's listening ability not really playing ability.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by cynical kane ( 730682 )
        Pressing keys in time with music does not real music constitute, but it's one of the basic skills. Before you can make your piano or guitar or flute or whatever sing with musical expression, you need to know how to press the right keys or frets in the right order at the right time. Learning how to do this is (relatively) dull but fundamentally important. Guitar Hero is basically the most boring part of being a musician, in video game form. This is why 1) most musicians find it trivial and 2) most musicians

      • I'm a musician, I've been playing for as long as I can remember.... Guitar hero is not playing music, and the skills do not transfer as people seem to think. Pressing buttons while holding your hands in a similar position as when playing a guitar gives you zero indication of musical ability or any positive benefit for your playing. It only shows you can move your fingers in time with a beat, but thats where the similarity ends.

        ...although i'm a pretty decent guitarist, I can't do those nutso songs on expert.

        I'm also a pretty decent guitarist and I appreciate how Guitar Hero forced me to move my left hand in ways I had previously been unpracticed in.

        If I number my fingers where 1 = index, 4 = pinky and 5 = thumb, doing patterns of 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3, 2, 4 in GH really helped to isolate and build hand muscle I previously hadn't much exercised. Not to mention 1/3, 2/4 "chord" switches and things of the like.

        It achieves the same end as say, trying to move each finger individually, in pairs, in threes, without letti

    • But it seems to me that if you're interested enough in playing music to spend hours on a simplified simulator, you might as well buy a cheap guitar / bass / drum kit and do it for real. It's not quite as easy, but it's far more rewarding and you aren't limited to playing other people's songs.

      I'm assuming you mean to say that the hardcore players who would keep the genre going may be moving to proper instruments, rather than the same tired troll "LRN to play N00B"?

      • Yes, that's pretty accurate.

        I'm not complaining about GH/RB players, since I am one. And my wording "not quite as easy" was poorly chosen--I certainly can't play GH on Expert, and even Hard can be too much for me. I should have written "simple" instead of "easy" because that's closer to the truth: a GH controller reduces a fretboard to 5 buttons and you don't have to worry about intonation or multiple strings, etc. Simplicity does not imply ease, as anyone who has played ferocious Pong matches can tell y

    • Oh well... there's always DDR!

    • Re:Good riddance. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Clovis42 ( 1229086 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:04PM (#28784859)

      you might as well buy a cheap guitar / bass / drum kit and do it for real.

      No. I don't want to learn how to play a guitar. I'm not musically talented at all, but I can do pretty good on Expert in the games. This is fun. I get to listen to and experience the music in a fun way. To learn guitar would take forever, and I would never be very good at it. It doesn't matter how much time I spend on guitar games; I'm only doing it to have fun. Why not tell FPS players to quit wasting their time and join the army??

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sukotto ( 122876 )

      Right, just like if you're really interested in

      • Golf, you should buy a cheap set of clubs and go play instead of sitting around playing the latest Tiger Woods game.
      • Football, Buy a ball instead of playing Madden
      • Skateboarding, Buy a skateboard instead of playing Tony Hawk
      • Etc

      :-)

    • As soon as you show me where on the guitar it tells me what my score is.

  • I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Goaway ( 82658 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:12PM (#28783959) Homepage

    Gee, think that might have anything to do with flooding the market with sequel after sequel until nobody can keep track of them any more?

  • DJ Hero (Score:3, Insightful)

    by werdnapk ( 706357 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:13PM (#28783969)

    DJ Hero [djhero.com] looks to be the newest addition to freshen up the genre.

    I'm not sure people will find it as "accessible" as guitar hero though due simply to the fact that almost everyone young and old understands the concept of a guitar.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Beerdood ( 1451859 )
      Oh that's just great. Guitar hero brought us a generation of kids playing video games pretending to be musicians. Now we're creating a generation of kids pretending to be people pretending to be musicians?

  • I'm surprised it lasted this long (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Piata ( 927858 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:13PM (#28783985)

    Activision especially has been milking this market for a while with new Guitar Hero packages yearly. Harmonix seems to be much more focused on quality vs quantity and also focused more on DLC than retail goods. In the end I think Activision is going to be hit the hardest by this as they've been pushing new instruments and Guitar Hero games yearly. There's only so many times people will upgrade their plastic instruments before the market is saturated.

    Plus, there's also the fact that you can go out and buy a real guitar for twice the price of one of these sets and develop a real skill with a real instrument that if properly maintained will last a life time.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Deosyne ( 92713 )

      It was a smart move for Harmonix to kill the idea of a Rock Band 3 this year, particularly with Activision completely saturating the market with Guitar Hero software. Admittedly, that was more for the sake of focusing development on Rock Band: Beatles, but it still works out. I just hope RB3 adds the one feature in Guitar Hero that doesn't suck: stats, and lots of them.

      After spending the past six months learning to play bass, I now realize what a bullshit correlation it is between playing rhythm games and p

    • Re:I'm surprised it lasted this long (Score:4, Informative)

      by Chad Birch ( 1222564 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:09PM (#28784957)
      New Guitar Hero packages "yearly"? I think you missed a few, starting from World Tour:

      Guitar Hero World Tour: October 26, 2008
      Guitar Hero On Tour Decades: November 16, 2008
      Guitar Hero Metallica: March 29, 2009
      Guitar Hero On Tour Modern Hits: June 9, 2009
      Guitar Hero Smash Hits: June 16, 2009
      Guitar Hero 5: September 1, 2009
      Band Hero: November 2009
      Guitar Hero Van Halen: November/December 2009

      That's 8 games in a little over one year.
      • I don't know that you can take the DS ones seriously, they have poor sound quality and involve a good chance of breaking the touchscreen from strumming.

    • Poor Activision, they recently tried to Axe Tim Schafers latest game because it did not have ever year sell a million franchise qualities, instead EA picked it up and then Activision sued EA.
      Do I fee sorry for them that their cash cow is going down the drain, no!

  • Seriously -- we are going to need something new to keep us entertained. How many Rock Bank/Guitar Hero games have there been now? Do they really think that people are dumb enough to keep buying the same thing over and over? They need to innovate! Figure out a way to use a real guitar, for instance. Then people can actually learn to play an instrument! Make it easier for users to upload their own songs. I don't know what the answer is, all I know is that they keep dumping the same thing on people over and ov

  • Like your significant other giving you dagger eyes when you mention picking up a $300 video game. It's okay though. I still have Enemy Territory. I mean, those guys who it happens to still have Enemy Territory.

    No, honey, I'm not on slashdot again. Yes, I'm updating my resume. What don't... what, is that a baseball bat? What are you... OH JESUS, MY LEGS! WHY ARE YOU DOI

    !#&^!$#^(&*) NO CARRIER

    • With paying for the game, your wife at least has a reasonable objection, but I get nasty glares just for playing the games, even the ones my wife bought me (TF2/Portal was the best birthday ever!). She doesn't like competing with a game for my attention, and she finds watching me play Guitar Hero (FretsOnFire actually) incredibly irritating. Everytime I puck up the keyboard on our MythTV system I get "the stare". "No, I'm not going to play Guitar Hero, I'm fixing the NFS issue! Can't I just geek out in

      • You think that's bad?

        We picked up Wii Fit last summer. I have played it every day since we got it except for five days when I was out of town.

        I lost 20 pounds and have kept it off. (I am down to 165 from my peak weight 13 years ago, which was 250. I had been stable at 185 for several years. I've been at 165 for a little under a year now.)

        My wife has not lost 20 pounds; she is extremely upset at me for losing weight.

        For Father's Day, she got me EA Active*. I've been doing that in the evenings for the last mo

  • There's so many damn versions out there, not just of major number releases like GH5 but spin-offs and other crap.

    Frankly, I'm astounded at the level of popularity and dumbfounded by the success of something like Rock Band with all those expensive peripherals. I would have pointed to that sniper game on that Sega system, the one with the $200 gun accessory with the TV built into the scope and said it would be another failure like that. Looks like I was wrong but it also looks like they're going to run the ge

  • Non-story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Amphetam1ne ( 1042020 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:23PM (#28784153)

    Anyone else thinking that sales are down because there is only a finite market for music based games and it's much closer to saturation point now than it was when the last batch of good games were released? GH Metalica is really only a purchase if you're a metalica fan, while GH Greatest/Smash Hits has had lack-luster reviews and will largely only get a purchase from the hardcore fans and those new to the series that didn't get to play GH1/2/3/80's.

    RB Beatles and GH5 are slated for September release and have now been out of the top 20 for 2 months. How exactly is the last major game release of a developer dropping out of the top 20 just 4 months before the release of their next major title a "decline"? Most development studios would make blood sacrafices to be in the top 20 that long!

    Filler article for the summer games-news drought.

  • Alesis had a cool theremin-like synth years ago. I bet you could get a Wii controller to behave like one.
  • I'll buy one when we finally have Dire Straits available to play on guitar. 'Cause I want my ... you know.
  • Basically, each new title that comes out invalidates all the previous songs. I now own GH III. GH Aerosmith, GH World Tour and GH Metallica. There is *some* sharing of DLC amongst the latest titles, but for every disk I put in my console - that acts to eliminate the majority of my collected songs from my available playlist. Until/Unless the next version of Guitar Hero allows me to copy ALL the songs from ALL my Guitar Hero's onto my disk and play them all from a single playlist, well, i'm losing interest.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dorkmaster Flek ( 1013045 )
      That's why I dumped GH once RB came out. RB's platform approach is the new way to do music games, and if GH won't follow suit, they won't be getting my dollars.

  • I bet the relatively high input lag of LCD monitors has something to do with this. Even 20-40ms of latency can wreck games where timing and rhythm is important.

    LCD manufacturers - please include this spec!! (CRT monitors don't suffer from this problem).

  • DDR (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @01:59PM (#28784771) Homepage

    Same thing happened with DDR. I love it, and there will always be a hardcore group of DDR players. But the market is saturated, and it isn't new anymore, so sales won't continue to climb forever.

    • I couldn't agree more. The rhythm game genre constantly evolves. Frequency->Guitar Hero->Rock Band (all the same developers). We'll see where they go next.

      Where to go next? Well, right now the drums and voice are both analogue instruments that could be hooked up to do whatever. Guitar/bass are not.

      It would be terribly interesting to make a game where you tried to play as close to the "notes" as possible, but it actually sounds slightly different from play to play because there is no "master track

  • You can thank Activision for that one, a new $60 game every couple months that is really nothing more than the same game with new songs gets old quick. DLC was supposed to end that but instead they do things like add some extra "frets" that are rarely used or throw in some cymbals to require the gamer to buy the entire package again to play the game properly. Harmonix has at least been a bit more responsible about it, but there is enough from them looming on the horizon to make them just as guilty. Thing

    • I understand the hate for Activision's approach, but what exactly is "looming on the horizon" for RB that has you upset? The Beatles RB is an entirely separate RB platform with its own game and DLC, yes, but this is mainly due to licensing restrictions for their music because, surprise, they're the freakin' Beatles and they get to dictate the terms. It's also only for one single band, and arguably the only band that could possibly pull it off. It's not like GH where you have multiple songs from the same
  • I don't want to buy another plastic instrument bundle, or pay $60 for effectively a song pack. The important thing for Guitar Hero and Rock Band was to distribute their product to the market, so that they could use those products as a store front to sell you more "DownLoadable Content" (add-on songs). Retail packages may be on the decline, but it's always fun to pick up a few new songs now and then. The concept of Rock Band or Guitar Hero don't really get boring unless you run out of songs you like, or o

  • Real Instruments / Real Teaching / Real Fun (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MarkvW ( 1037596 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:17PM (#28785057)

    The genre as it exists now is just fun.
    If it ever expanded into real teaching with a real guitar, you'd create a new generation of Eric Claptons zoning out with their guitar in their room for months at a time until they got good.

    Real fun teaching software would rule the software world.

  • I'd love to play keyboard hero. Of course I already know how to play so would be at a bit of an advantage compared to my friends, but it could help improve my sight reading and give me some music to play in a situation I usually wouldn't be playing in (something like a 'real' rock band, as opposed to playing solo 99% of the time).

    If they ever made keyboard hero they'd probably use some sort of silly way of showing the notes rather than the real score which would be annoying. They'd probably also use a tiny

    • I've seen 3 people make this request in this thread alone. (including myself)

      They say the best software comes from developers who get an itch they want to scratch. Maybe 'we' should get started on that...
    • Found it. [kotaku.com] My curiosity was peeked so I Googled it. To bad its not for XBox360. I'm addicted to achievement points.
  • Perhaps because everybody who is interested has already bought it? I hit my favorite box store once a week to see if a music pack I'm interested in is out. Until the Beatles one is released, I'm not going to have anything to buy to produce the sales blip they are looking for. I'm not saying this is the reason, but couldn't the article have considered this possibility, rather than assuming they knew the answer and writing a bunch of postulation based on that guess?

  • After enjoying several years of popularity, music games seem to be drawing less and less interest from gamers lately. Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles have been conspicuously absent from a list of the 20 best-selling software titles in the past two months

    Given the model those games use, I'd expect a big surge when a new core game + bandkit combo is released that would then taper off, and given that the controllers are largely compatible between versions and across franchises, you'd expect the percentage of

  • I know they have software similar, but not for the XBox with achievement points. Nothing like addictive positive feedback to keep you motivated in your practice.

    A keyboard game that starts with the "home" keys and basic notes and scrolls them across the screen in rhythm like guitar hero/rock band, but uses real notes instead of button presses would be really cool.

    The only problem is people would probably learn bad form. Its been years since I took real piano lessons, but you could pick up some nasty h

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