Guitar Hero Gets New Developer

GameDaily is reporting that the much loved Guitar Hero series seems to have been given over to new developers. NeverSoft, makers of Gun and the Tony Hawk series of games, are now advertising open positions on their Guitar Hero team. Harmonix, Activision, and Neversoft are all mum on the development at this point, but it's hard to argue with a big 'hiring' sign. Notably, Neversoft appears to be hiring for a PlayStation 3 version of the game. From the article: "Neversoft is undoubtedly filled with much talent, but we're not quite sure why RedOctane would give the development duties to them after Harmonix created two hugely successful games. Guitar Hero II really cranked it up to 11 with sales of more than 805 K units in December alone in the U.S. In fact, according to recent NPD data, the game was the fifth best selling game for all of 2006 with 1.3 million units sold in the U.S."

The big question -

[PunkOfLinux]

Will this have any effect on quality?

Boo!

[MBCook]

BOOOOOOOOOO

*hiss*

Bad Activision. Bad. Take a game from a great developer who basically IS music games that aren't DDR (Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II) on the main consoles, and give it to... Neversoft. Who hasn't made a music game. Who took their successful and great Tony Hawk games and kept grinding out sequels as the series went into the ground, adding in features to make it "extreme" like THUG, THUG2, etc. The games are getting closer and closer to being BMX: XXX.

Bye bye Guitar Her

Re:

[cspariah]

From the rumors I've heard, MTV -- the new owners of Harmonix -- demanded way too much money for GH3. Something like 4X what Red Octane had paid Harmonix for GH2. But like I said, that's just rumor.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

> a great developer who basically IS music games that aren't DDR

And is a good hunk of DDR as well, at least on the hardware side. Red Octane *owns* the mid-range DDR pad market. I have a Red Octane DDR pad myself and wouldn't lose it for anything.

CHris Mattern

Oh great...

[darkhitman]

Now we'll get to play Guitar Hero XTREME! featuring all those terrible punk rock bands you had hoped never existed.

I'm looking foward to

[fotbr]

reading this one's postmortem in Game Developer or gamasutra in 12 months.

Sales numbers

[Telvin_3d]

I'm surprised that anyone would be planning a PS3 version of guitar hero any time soon. From the point of view of sales, it is a loosing proposition. I mean, look at the numbers. The sales numbers that TFA claims for GH2 just about equal the number of PS3s that have been sold in total. Assuming that Sony manages to triple the number of PS3s in homes by the time they release the next Guitar Hero, they would still need to sell a copy to 1 in 3 PS3 owners just to equal the first month's sales of GH2. That

Re:

[josteos]

I'm hoping for a Wii version.....

But if all else fails, keep it alive on PS2. After all, the PS2 was the #1 selling console in December...

Still...

[Plekto]

I'd be perfectly happy if they just made a dozen or more expansions for it. Same exact thing as Guitar Hero II, but with new bands and music. Who wouldn't buy a new Guitar Hero II "rock-pack"(or name it something simmilar - doesn't really matter) every year? New groups, new challenges. Same basic great game. No real need to turn it over to a whole new company, either.

Re:

[PaxTech]

Who wouldn't buy a new Guitar Hero II "rock-pack"(or name it something simmilar - doesn't really matter) every year?

Personally, I'd buy one every goddamn *month*. Gimme gimme gimme.. :)

Re:

[macserv]

They'd be stupid not to do a Wii version. The Guitar Hero SG Controller would be much less expensive to produce for the Wii... all you need is a rectangular slot where the Wii Remote snaps in, and then you only have to wire up some buttons. The Wiimote provides all the controller logic, motion sensitivity, wireless electronics, etc. Of course, the retail price wouldn't necessarily be any lower, and the company could make a lot more on every Wii version sold, or pass some of the savings on to the customer

Re:

[Headcase88]

"or pass some of the savings on to the customer."

lol.

Hopefully they (as in Red Octane) would do that in the form of not making their controller a piece of shit. Now admittedly I only have a sample of two to work with, but both of our controllers broke down without any undue stress applied to them. About me and 5 of my friends bought Ignitions from Red Octane and none of them survived, and I heard from multiple forums their new Afterburner pad is no better. 'Tis a shame there aren't better peripheral co

Re:Sales numbers

[trdrstv]

I'm surprised that anyone would be planning a PS3 version of guitar hero any time soon. From the point of view of sales, it is a loosing proposition. I mean, look at the numbers.

Though that is true (You won't see many PS3 exclusives for quite a while, because it isn't worth it) you only have to take in more money than it costs to port it from the 360 version (considering the 360 and PS3 both support USB for the guitar). That and this offers an upgrade path for those who have the GH games from the PS2.

In truth is would be better to keep the PS2 line and offer a PS3 compatible guitar.

Re:

[xero314]

I'm surprised that anyone would be planning a PS3 version of guitar hero...

I agree. Everyone knows it's much smarter to move to a new console and continue your franchise there, regardless of the fact that the new console has no backward compatibility with your previous releases that have built an extremely large fan base. I mean look how well it worked for Odd World Inhabitants.

For those that are not aware Odd World Inhabitants produced to highly acclaimed and successful Playstation games but decided t

Because In House development is cheaper.

[dctoastman]

Why are they asking "Why did Red Octane give over development to Neversoft?"?

Because Activision owns Red Octane and by extension the Guitar Hero brand. So if Activision wants Neversoft to make a game, then that's what happens. I don't quite blame them seeing as how Activision has in-house development teams.

Plus, would you really want Harmonix to make it, knowing full well they've been bought out by MTV?

I have some faith in Neversoft. They did provide us with the excellent Spiderman game for the PSX.

Honestly though...

[ravyne]

Do we really want a company now owned, unfortunately, by MTV in charge of a game about music?

I'd hate to see our precious Guitar Hero slowly transformed from "All Music, All the Time" into a reality-TV-like Sims starring drunk and likely bi-polar college age kids with little or no personality.

Its best this game stay as far away from MTV as possible.

Re:

[Danse]

I'd like to see a Guitar Hero for the PC (I dont play console games) and with the ability to put in your own tracks.

Already exists. It's called Frets On Fire [kempele.fi]. Tons of songs available if you look around a bit, and you can even use a Playstation guitar controller if you get a Playstation-to-USB adapter.

Anyone remember the Jet Moto series?

[stevenvi]

Jet Moto 1 and 2 were made by Singletrac (I think was the company) and were excellent. They were bought out by Sony, who let another team make the 3rd game. It sucked. Why should it be any different for Guitar Hero, who's original company has been bought out by MTV? I think that that was when the series officially died.

Re:

[Half-pint HAL]

Jet Moto 1 and 2 were made by Singletrac (I think was the company) and were excellent. They were bought out by Sony, who let another team make the 3rd game. It sucked. Why should it be any different for Guitar Hero,

Because Guitar Hero is pretty easy to write. No clever level design, no imaginative end-of-level baddies, just notes. A couple of guys who know a little bit about guitars lay out some notes et voila!

HAL.

Re:

[tweek]

Have you actually watched the behind the scenes footage on the games? It's not a simple level editor setup. They have to recreate the songs in studio because of the sheer licensing costs associated with all the songs they put out (and because it's impossible to get the masters for alot of the older songs they cover).

I'm hoping this turns out well. I have never gotten more replay value out of a video game as I have the GH series. If I didn't have such an investment in PS2 gear for it, I'd be all over the 360

Just doing the port?

[merreborn]

Is there any reason to believe that these guys aren't just responsible for the PS3 port of GH2?

They're talking about trying to knock out 3 ports of GH2 this year, and GH3 by the end of the year as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's just too much for Red Octane/Harmonix to tackle without a little outsourcing.

Re:

[GeckoX]

Yeah, and neversoft is already well versed in the porting department. That actually makes a lot of sense.

No more "As made famous by..."

[KlomDark]

After suffering through that horrible vocalist, way out of his vocal range, that they used to do the Megadeth covers on GH and GH2, I refuse to buy GH3 if it once again is not the ORIGINAL SONGS by the ORIGINAL ARTIST.

God, it's fucking horrible the way that poser vomits the end of Symphony of Destruction. If it ain't got Dave Mustaine's voice, I don't want anything to do with it.

If I'm paying 3 times the cost of a music CD for the game, I damn well expect real versions of the songs on it. Cheap ass bastards

Re:

[xero314]

God, it's fucking horrible the way that poser vomits the end of Symphony of Destruction.

As opposed to how Dave vomits on the end of Symphony of Destruction. If you seriously think Dave can sing you are delusional and really don't have any credibility. I really enjoy megadeth, but it's certainly not for the vocal work.

That being said, the developer of GH has tried to use the original records when they were made available in a format that can be used in guitar hero. This requires the original master tra

Re:

[KlomDark]

Yes, I really think Dave can sing, and I don't see what my delusional tendencies have to do with it. He's got that killer growl in his voice that's just perfect for that kind of music. Could you imagine Megadeth without Dave Mustaine?

However, if you want to hear exceptional vocals in metal, you have to listen to some Nevermore. Just incredible.

I am so sick of the metal that's come out the last few years with these dorks trying to sound tough by growling all the time and instead sound like they're having a t

Re:

[DJ_Adequate]

I had more problem's with You Really Got Me being credited to Van Halen. I know there cover was popular, but the Kinks made it famous first, darn it! It's not like it wasn't a hit before VH got hold of it.

Re:

[xero314]

I had more problem's with You Really Got Me being credited to Van Halen

Van Halen's version of "You Really Got Me" is significantly different from the Kinks version. I prefer the Kinks but that's not the version they chose to cover. Also this is not the first time GH had done this since "Higher Ground" was originally a Stevie Wonder song, though the GH version is a Cover of the Chili Peppers version. It would probably have been nice for them to mention the original artists in the game though.

Re:

[heinousjay]

I wasn't aware there were people out there who purchased games only to listen to the music. Personally, I like playing them, but that's just me.

One more update

[Daetrin]

According to this article at GamesAreFun [gamesarefun.com] (which cites GameSpot as its source) Activision recently filed for trademarks for "Guitar Villain" and "Drum Villain."