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XBox (Games)

Guitar Hero Downloadable Content Announced, Expensive 133

Posted by Zonk from the need-my-rocking-to-be-more-affordable dept.
Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog has the word on the first three downloadable content packs for Guitar Hero II on the 360. The good news is that song selections include tracks like 'Ace of Spades', 'Killer Queen', and 'Bark at the Moon'. The bad news is that buying just three songs is 500 points. "The price of around $2 per song isn't outrageous, but it isn't generous either. I'd also prefer they allow you to buy each song alone, instead of being forced into the bundles. It's also worth noting that if you bought every song in the original Guitar Hero at this rate, you'd pay $97.92. Not exactly a compelling deal."
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Guitar Hero Downloadable Content Announced, Expensive More

Guitar Hero Downloadable Content Announced, Expensive

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  • For the addicts out there, totally worth it.
    • Nah, not when I can use my pre-existing, legally-purchased track of those songs, using a "really great fingering arrangement" (I don't know GH's term for "stepchart") that my friend suggested, at no additional cost, by playing Frets on Fire.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by nullChris ( 222844 )
        Frets on Fire is great for what it is, but it isn't quite the same. When you screw up on Frets on Fire, the part you are supposed to be playing keeps right on playing. Assuming you have a guitar controller rigged up, you can't use the tremolo bar for anything. To some this may seem minor, but to others, that's a big part of how the game draws you in.
        • Why haven't the FoF programmers been able to match that functionality (the tremelo bar and halting music at failure)?

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by nullChris ( 222844 )
            Guitar hero does not use a regular copy of the song. Most of the songs are re-recorded by Harmonix, and the song is split up into a track for the guitar part(s), and "the rest". So when a screw up occurs, the guitar track is stopped, while the rest of it keeps on playing. FoF allows audio files to be brought in, but these files do not have the instruments split into different tracks. It's already mixed.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by zrobotics ( 760688 )
            I think the real question is "Why did the GH developers decide that the thing that really gets the crowd goin' is pounding the tremolo bar like an insane man? Is there a precedent for this in real life?"
            • Absolutely... have you seen rednecks go crazy for Zakk Wylde live? It's inexplicable.
            • it was a stratocaster with a whammy bar...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
            FoF supports halting the music. But it only works if you have two-track audio. Otherwise it's all or nothing. Check out some of the indy tracks out there for it, or the ones that come with it, they halt the foreground guitar without halting the accompaniment.
            • Basically you need separate tracks for the guitar and everything else. There are a number of indy music songs available for FoF, but most of the fan-made songs don't have separate guitar tracks to work with. FoF also has an "Import" function that can import the songs from a copy of GH1 or GH2 and have the separate guitar tracks. (Or you can search for "Frets of Fire" on Pirate Bay and download them.)

              FoF stores the songs audio as guitar.ogg and music.ogg in the song's directory. When you're playing cor

    • Anyone who falls into the category of a Guitar Hero addict already owns all of these songs on Guitar Hero 1 for PS2.

      But if that's a good deal to you, I'm also willing to sell you your own car. I'm also having a sale on that shirt and pants you're wearing. Totally worth it.

      • Except, of course, for those of us who a) sold our PS2 versions, and b) want the GH1 songs with the improved engine and cooperative capabilities of GH2. Let alone the better graphics, leaderboarding, and all that sort of stuff on the Xbox 360 version.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Quastor ( 797378 )

        Anyone who falls into the category of a Guitar Hero addict already owns all of these songs on Guitar Hero 1 for PS2.

        Except for the fact that by purchasing these songs from the XBL marketplace, you get access to:

        1. Online Leaderboards
        2. Multiplayer/Co-op tracks
        3. The improved (read: easier) Hammer On's and Pull Off's
        4. The ability to switch between GH1 and GH2 tracks without switching disks.

        While I think everyone would love for these tracks to be sold individually and for cheaper, I still think the advantages of the DLC version over the original is well worth the price.

    • I wonder if these songs are already on the disk and only unlockable through purchasing them (the key)? Imagine the justifiable outrage if that is the case. They pulled this crap with Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the original xbox but at least those were free "downloads".

      • The downloads are about 10 megs each, which is about right for three songs in DD5.1. Unlike, say, the DDR Universe song downloads, which are 108 KB each, and are pretty obviously just unlock codes for content already on the disc.

  • Let Red Octane know (Score:5, Informative)

    by MeanMF ( 631837 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @10:57AM (#18690253) Homepage
    I'd like to know what Ars Technica WOULD consider outrageous...

    Anyway, here's where to send feedback to Red Octane about their pricing: http://www.redoctanegames.com/0_contact.asp [redoctanegames.com]
    • Oh please. Everybody on the Internet always complains that everything is too expensive. It gets old. The company pricing the product knows a heck of a lot more about the market and their customers than random Internet users, and I can guarantee that these "almost outrageously expensive" prices will also be almost outrageously popular.

      The true measure of whether something is too expensive is whether people buy it. If customers are buying it, then it's not too expensive.

  • Beats iTunes (Score:5, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @10:57AM (#18690255) Journal
    Considering there's more than just a song, there's the data needed to sync the game to the music.

    Oh wait, Xbox

    YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!

    Fuckin stuff doesnt even have FAIRPLAY on it TO PROTECT ME FROM EVIL

    Wait until Guitar Hero comes out for Apple TV. APPLE "GETS IT"

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      Considering there's more than just a song, there's the data needed to sync the game to the music.

      That's little more than transcription. It's a bit of work, considering it needs balancing and testing, but hardly the same level that goes into writing, performing recording and marketting. Not that this has any effect on the end price at all.

      and do you really think this is going to be sold completely without any form of copy protection?
    • Considering there's more than just a song, there's the data needed to sync the game to the music.

      SMPTE is a pain in the ass, but it's fairly lightweight and is well known enough that it should "just work" even on a system that isn't designed for it (like a game console - or any device without a hardware SMPTE clock). It would surprise me if GH used SMPTE, though, since it's not the sort of issue you think about until you get spanked by it in QA. Plus, programmers (especially game programmers) tend to like t
  • When are we going to get some Led Zeppelin?

    I'm sure it will be very expensive, but it would be quite thrilling to play "The Rain Song" and "Battle of Evermore." I can't wait!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by SMQ ( 241278 )
      Probably never. Page and Plant have always been extremely reluctant to license Led Zeppelin songs. If you've seen the extras on the School of Rock DVD, you know that Jack Black had to literally beg to be allowed to use about 20 seconds of The Immigrant Song. You won't find Led Zeppelin on iTunes or any other (legal) online music service either.

      • Re:Led Zeppelin? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by chill ( 34294 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:28AM (#18690761) Journal
        "Never" in this context means "When Robert Plant and Jimmy Page die and the next generation greed of the people whose only connection to the music is a check, kicks in."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Radres ( 776901 )
        They didn't seem to have a problem licensing songs to Puff Daddy and Cadillac.
    • No Stairway? Denied!
      • I'm pretty sure the "Remember, NO STAIRWAY!" comment in GH2 is there for a reason. In fact, it's on a sign in just about every guitar shop for the same reason.

        No Stairway for you!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AuNuma1 ( 689600 )
      I'm still waiting for some Floyd...that would so rock.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsmit ( 222375 )
        Guitar Hero is ACHING for Comfortably Numb...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by toolie ( 22684 )
        "Hey You" is on the first pack mentioned in TFA. Of course, I still need "Comfortably Numb", "Us and Them", oh screw it... everything from "Pulse" would be a good start at making me happy.
        • Don't download the "Hey You" available now. You'll be sorely disappointed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by toolie ( 22684 )
            I just found that out... next question, who in the hell are the Exies? :)

            Oh well, two out of the three might still make it worth grabbing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )
      Screw Zeppelin, I want some AC/DC.

  • I figured Slashdot would understand this. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kinglink ( 195330 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:00AM (#18690299)
    First off let's assume that Microsoft and RIAA takes around 1 dollar (aka Itunes) for the covers of these songs (which is sort of a double dip for RIAA since they can get you for the licensing and likely the music talent also) and Microsoft gets money for distributing the data (They take a good chunk off the top). Then you need the Harmonix group to separate the guitar tracks from the vocals, and the second guitar tracks from the vocals (why this has to be a live recording rather then using an MP3 from Itunes). Then finally you have to make a note chart for all four difficulties as well as a note chart for co-op. Test them to make sure they aren't too hard or easy. And then publish them.

    Personally I think this price is fair. It's a touch high, but knowing the RIAA thought pattern I'm sure it's more than reasonable from their first suggestion.

    • Re:I figured Slashdot would understand this. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MeanMF ( 631837 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:03AM (#18690367) Homepage
      They don't have to separate the guitar tracks from the vocals because these are not original recordings..None of them are even performed by the original bands - they're all covers done specifically for the game. Plus these songs were already done for the PS2 version of Guitar Hero so it's not like they had to re-record or do new new charts for any of them.
      • Incorrect, a couple of the tracks are master tracks: "Possum Kingdom" by Toadies, and "Dead!" by My Chemical Romance.

        Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_hero_ii [wikipedia.org]
      • If these tracks are enabled for cooperative multiplayer (I've seen no confirmation one way or the other), then each of these tracks probably required a nontrivial amount of reworking. I for one would rather have cooperative multiplayer for these tracks than single player.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by trdrstv ( 986999 )
        They don't have to separate the guitar tracks from the vocals because these are not original recordings..None of them are even performed by the original bands - they're all covers done specifically for the game. Plus these songs were already done for the PS2 version of Guitar Hero so it's not like they had to re-record or do new new charts for any of them.

        Ok, these songs were covers but some were master recordings. Also of note, these songs were done for GH1 which had a very primitive co-op compared to

    • but that doesn't change my wallet's position. Oh well, in 50 years $2 songs will be a steal at double the price, right? And we'll be paying those prices for the same classic songs!
    • I agree. You can't compare this to the iTMS or any other online music store and then complain about the price. They're not just distributing someone else's music, they're putting a good amount of work into it, and offering a final product of which the music is just a single part.

      Think about it in terms of how much enjoyment you'll get from a new GH song. An hour's worth? Is that worth $2 to you?

      It would be nice if they'd let you buy just one song at a time though. The bundling is unnecessary, and just makes

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lazerf4rt ( 969888 )

      Then you need the Harmonix group to separate the guitar tracks from the vocals, and the second guitar tracks from the vocals (why this has to be a live recording rather then using an MP3 from Itunes). Then finally you have to make a note chart for all four difficulties as well as a note chart for co-op. Test them to make sure they aren't too hard or easy.

      Your point would be much more valid if they hadn't already done all of that... 18 months ago. These are all recycled Guitar Hero 1 songs. Most GH fans ca

      • Most GH fans, except for those that don't own the PS2 GH1, or a PS2 for that matter. This is on Xbox Live's Marketplace, and I really doubt these packs are aimed at those who have GH1 and a PS2.

        • Most GH fans that own the PS2 GH1 is most GH fans. Xbox Live Marketplace is targeting the remainder. And within that remainder, those willing to part with more than $2 per song. I hope they enjoy selling to 8 people.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by toolie ( 22684 )
        Your point would be much more valid if they hadn't already done all of that... 18 months ago. These are all recycled Guitar Hero 1 songs.

        Can you tell me where to get GH1 with co-op mode?
    • They had to do all of this for the 48 licensed songs that were included on the retail game. And that only cost $90 and included a guitar controller that retails for $50-$60. That comes to $1.88 per song, including guitar controller and retail packaging. This is $2.08 per song with no guitar or packaging. They are way off the mark on price.
    • Actually, this is a good point - the largest proportion is almost certainly going to the RIAA, and considering Microsoft's recent spat with Epic about Gears of war content which Epic had originally wanted to give away for free, we can suppose that a large portion of the remaining is going to Microsoft. Harmonix, the people who modified the original content to be a pretty fun game are getting the rest of the money, and the bands which wrote the tunes, having pre-sold their tunes to record companies, are gett
    • The Guitar Hero II software program launched for $49.99. Let's forget for a moment that the guitar was a separate $30 item since the subject at hand is the cost of the software and music. The program came packed with 40 mainstream songs and 24 "B-List" titles by less popular bands. So there is a licensing cost for those 64 songs. Let's not forget, though, that they also had to go to the trouble of developing the game itself, the models, the menus, graphics, etc..

      That means that the total cost of dev
      • Mod the parent up! Everyone needs to realize that the cost for these downloadable tracks is about three times the cost of the tracks that come with the game itself. The price disparity cannot be justified in any way.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kinglink ( 195330 )
        Go to a sushi restaurant and buy a set of sushi. Then go and buy each one à la Carte. Why is the set of sushi at a different price? you're getting the same sushi? It's called packaging.

        Why is it that I can buy 100 of the same burnable dvds for 1 dollar a disc or less but a single dvd can cost me 2-3 dollars? Because bulk counts too.

        Just so you know, in the game industry it works the same way, not just for consumers but you can buy a large amount of label music cheaper than just buying a single song
        • Packaging, eh? The cost to "package" a download is essentially zero. Someone has to put the songs together into the Xbox360 equivalent of a ZIP file and then post them to the Marketplace. It's different when there is a physical product involved (i.e. sushi or single burnable discs). Comparatively, the packaging and distribution costs of a download are a trivial sum.

          I'm not sure whether Redoctane or Microsoft deserves the greater share of the blame here. Whoever is responsible is counting on the custo
          • Dear god, did you even read the comment or did you pick out one word in the first line?

            I'm not talking about "cost of packaging" I'm talking about bulk. Let's look at a "non physical" product. There's a rental store in my town where you can rent a movie for 3 dollars. However if you buy 100 "rentals" at a time you get them for 1 dollar. So is it unfair to charge you 3 dollars to rent a movie when you can buy 100 rentals for 1 dollar? Nope because the guy buying 100 rentals are buying in bulk.

            It's the s

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Sancho ( 17056 )
              But packaging real products gets you a discount because they are moving more product. It's better to sell more sushi at a reduced price than to throw it away because the individual portions are too expensive.

              Swing back into the Virtual world. The GH1 songs are done. The effort in packaging them for Xbox is absurdly minimal--most of the hard work (recording, mixing, creating the file format) was done for GH1, long before porting to the XBox was a twinkle in anyone's eye. The work they have to do to sell

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CyberZen ( 97536 )
      Actually, I'd be surprised if the RIAA is getting a penny for most of the content. Remember, most of the tracks are covers. Surely, for the songs by the original artists, there's some RIAA / label negotiaion involved.

      For covers, though, we're looking at fees payed to the songwriters, not the performers. The performances probably fall into "work-for-hire" territory. The money for the songwriter goes to ASCAP, not the RIAA. And it won't be near $1 per track sold.

      Remember:
      RIAA = Labels, copyright holders
    • The RIAA should only be getting 8 cents a track. These are all covers.

      http://www.eff.org/share/?f=legal.html [eff.org]

      Today, this license allows bands to record (or "cover") another band's song (so long as they've paid the $.08 per copy of the recorded track).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hurfy ( 735314 )
        But there is SOMEONE performing them, dont they get paid ALSO ??

        If that is the people that did the rearrangement so be it, but i bet they have a copyright on their performance. How they get paid for it is the question. Maybe on a per piece basis like others would, or they included it in other costs, or?

        How much music is NOT a cover piece? Hell, half of what i hear is a remake from 70-80's or something that was probably a cover of a 60's song....etc

        • But there is SOMEONE performing them, dont they get paid ALSO ??


          Harmonix employed a handful of studio musicians to record all the covers. On the first game, most of the guitar tracks were recorded by a single guy, named Marcus Henderson. All the studio musicians got their cut a long time ago. Studio musicians in a situation like that don't get royalties, and don't retain copyrights.

  • Bull. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by MBCook ( 132727 )

    I really REALLY like Harmonix. For the rest of this comment, I'm going to assume this is MS's doing, as I like Harmonix and think they are nicer to their users than this.

    Let's review. I bought Guitar Hero, and loved it. I bought Guitar Hero 2, and loved it. I've been considering buying Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 (I'd have to buy a 360, which I plan to do when there are enough games I like) because of the downloadable content. I really love the game. I'm glad they are releasing songs from the original (come

    • The fingering charts don't grow on trees. You mean you want to pay less than the price of the song for the song plus the five fingering charts included (one for each difficulty level, plus co-op).

      I'm sure they'd be happy to let you play your LEGAL PURCHASED mp3 in Guitar Hero...but have fun being like the five year old at the arcade who doesn't have any money and "plays" the demo...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MBCook ( 132727 )
        The fingering charts were already done for the first game. These are not new songs where they had to create this. The data already existed. They want to sell new songs that haven't been in either game for $2... I could understand that better. But I see this as an insult. The song was already recorded, they didn't need to redo that either. These specific tracks should not be this expensive.
        • Well, for those songs, at most half of the fingering charts were already ready. The second player plays the bass part, or the supporting guitar part. The first guitar hero had the player taking whatever the most memorable melody of the song was, whether it be lead guitar, supporting guitar, or bass. GH1's cooperative play merely had player 1 and 2 switching parts in the song, and basically playing the same exact part.

          It's possible that they even reworked the existing charts to further separate player 1 a

    • Or I can also get copies of the songs for Guitar Hero 2 for the 360, in groups of 3, at the low low price of OVER DOUBLE WHAT iTUNES CHARGES. Get serious. No go. I would be questioning a $1 price. This is insane. How about you let me stick my LEGAL, PURCHASED copy of the game in the drive and play the songs off it or copy them to the hard drive so I can play them? Sell me a $10 unlocker that lets me do this.

      I'm confused. You can already stick your legal purchased copy of GH2 in the drive and use the music from it. They're not trying to sell you that. Oh, unless you're referring to your legal purchased copy of GH1... yeah. No, I really don't think the Xbox360 is ever going to be able to read Playstation 2 discs, and stop your bitching because I don't think that Microsoft can do crap all about that.

  • Ourageous? Seems VERY reasonable to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cblack ( 4342 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:02AM (#18690351) Homepage
    ~$2 a song seems VERY reasonable to me. I can understand the complaints when content is in $10 packs, but I think $5 packs is a good price point. And three songs for around $5 is pretty good in my opinion. People always complain about the price of downloadable add-on content. Sometimes it is justified, in this case the whining seems a bit absurd. I pay $5 for lunch, I pay $10 to see a movie, I'd gladly pay $5 for hours of video game entertainment. Don't you people remember arcades? Don't be so damn cheap and whiny.
    • Keep in mind that MS Points are not on a 100:$1 ratio, I think it's more like 100:$1.20 but I could be wrong. So 500 points is actually $6. But you did say "around $5" so whatever.

      I do agree with you that the price seems fair. Most people are not looking to buy every song from Guitar Hero 1 (or new tracks for that matter), they will pick and choose their favorites and then they'll have a party and buy a few more per guests' requests and that'll be that. The average person will probably buy only two or t

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by phreak64 ( 536805 )
      I think that there's a very valid pattern of complaints over DLC. Not all of it is portable between different machines (the new Halo 2 maps are an example). While, from a strict licensing standpoint, you're not supposed to share your game content with your friends, I believe everyone has let someone borrow a game or taken a game over to someone's house. Portability and borrowing game content is strictly limited. None of it has any resale value at all. If you buy a disc-based expansion pack for a game,

    • Don't you people remember arcades? Don't be so damn cheap and whiny.
      Yeah, I remember paying $1 to play Daytona USA, where the difficulty level on the arcade version meant you could never get close to winning, and paying up to $0.75 to Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and getting whipped in the first match, and on and on...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      If you saved $5.00 a day you will save over $18,000 in 10 years. Just enough to buy the PS6 and 2 games when it releases.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        If you save $5/day at 5% interest you will have significantly more money than that in 10 years. More than $23,000, actually

  • No suprise (Score:2, Insightful)

    by OK PC ( 857190 )
    I knew this would happen, and people were all happy about downloadable content for Guitar Hero! There are no bargains nor reasonable prices on the XBox Marketplace, its just the way it is. With these, you could buy the actual song for cheaper than that. Can we blame Red Octane, possibly, but with the recent Gears incident I don't think Microsoft are at all innocent in this
  • I wish they did this for Amplitude. It's a shame that there won't be any others (according to Harmonix).
  • If you accept the standard $1 a song set by iTunes, then $2 a song doesn't seem bad at all. Considering that they lay out different finger/strum patterns for 4 difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert), and that it isn't just the song, but the song broken into a few different tracks to isolate the bass/2nd guitar, and lead guitar, the product is quite a bit more than the equivalent purchasable mp3. I'm not sure what cut goes back to the labels/artists, but I'd guess it's similar to iTunes' model.

    Even

  • I believe those people who... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TooMuchEspressoGuy ( 763203 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:10AM (#18690473)
    ...predicted that "microtransactions" would lead to half-finished yet full-price games where the developer nickle-and-dimes you for content that should have been included in the game in the first place have been vindicated as of late. This whole thing is a PR disaster waiting to happen.

    Need proof? Guitar Hero 1 had maybe 30-35 songs, and was priced at $40 for just the game. Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 has around 50 songs, and minus the cost of the controller, it's about $50 alone. That's about $1-$1.25/song, and even lower if you count the cost of the game "shell" itself; a pretty good deal, seeing as you own the rights to use the physical media for eternity.

    But, $2/song? For just the songs? Where is the extra cost coming from?

    If I had to guess, the greedy developers.

    • GH2 for 360 has over 70 songs, including bonus tracks that are unlocked with in-game credits.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_hero_ii [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:I believe those people who... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mathonwy ( 160184 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:51AM (#18691151)
      Erm. Excuse me?

      Let's look at this a different way. Pretend the 360 doesn't even exist. Guitar hero came out for the PS2 as well, if you'll recall.

      Are you saying that GH2 didn't have enough songs in it to be worth selling? That it was "half finished" with a mere 70 songs or so?

      Forgive me, but playing it, it sure feels like a full featured game to me. Doesn't seem "half finished, full priced" at all. And "content that should have been included in the first place"? Where are you getting that exactly? It wasn't in the PS2 version. Why should thouse extra songs have "been in the first place", exactly, besides that "you wants them"? It's not like the 360 version is significantly more expensive than the PS2, and so you're "owed" songs. (They're within $10, according to EBgames, and that's with the PS2 one having been out for a while.)

      The ONLY reason that (as far as I can tell) you [and others] are complaining, is that you're annoyed that, now that they've provided their full game, they have the audacity to give you the OPTION of adding more content to it, at some price that they set, which doesn't even seem that far out. (I agree with the assessment of "not especially generous, but not unfair, either.") I feel pretty strongly that you got a full game out of the deal either way, even if you don't buy stuff.

      You may feel that their prices are too high for add on songs. But I still can't visualize the mental contortions required to get from that, to "clearly vindicates people worried that microtransactions would lead to half finished games". I can only conclude that you are either actively trolling, haven't actually played Guitar Hero 2 and are just complaining on principal, or are misinformed.
      • I don't agree with the assessment that GH2 for 360 was "half finished". It is a great game, out of the box.

        HOWEVER, I specifically held off from buying the PS2 version, so that I could wait for the 360, because of the promise of downloadable songs. I figured they would release all of the original GH1 songs for about $40 or less (based on the fact that you can buy it for PS2 for $40). And then there would be the option to get new songs. That made it worth the wait.

        But now I feel I made the wrong decision. I
  • $2 a song seems entirely reasonable. Giving the price of every song on GH is a bogus comparision, because I doubt I'd have bought every song on GH if I'd been given the chance to cherry-pick.

    The bundling is obnixious, though. It's like cable and satellite TV, where you pay extra for channels you'll never watch, just so you can get the one channel you actually want.

    But compare it with other music-related deals in the marketplace. People pay ridiculous amounts of money for *ringtones* -- you don't even hea
  • Evidently I suck at GH, three new songs would give me at least couple hours of entertainment, compare it to going to a movie, and it's a freakin bargain.

    I think people over-simplify the mechanics of GH, its not like your just downloading three mp3's. I certainly wish I could get the first two packs, unfortunately im stuck with the ps2 version.

  • Think it's worth it? Put it in context... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) * on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:38AM (#18690929)
    Some people are suggesting the price is fair when comparing it to music prices online.

    The problem is, most XBox live users wont and aren't comparing it to that, they're comparing it to other XBox live content. When you can get Geometry Wars or some other 400 points game on XBox live for less than the price of a 3 song pack, the price of the songs becomes a whole lot less fair looking.

    The cost of all 9 songs is more than 3x 400 point full games and is only 100 MS points short of 4 full games. It's also not far off (700 points) the cost of the new Oblivion expansion - shivering isles.

    I think quite simply, a combination of of digital music still being rather expensive, Red Octane/Harmonix/MS wanting to squeeze as much out of customers for DLS as they can and then some of the 400 point games being reasonably priced is where where these complaints come from.

    One final point worth noting is also that $2 per song is reasonable to some people here, but do those people still find it reasonable if only one of the songs out of the 3 are worth having? That essentially makes it $6 per song you want if you're forced to have 2 songs you neither want nor will ever play.

    I do think the DLC for Guitar Hero could be handled a whole lot better - I'll admit I'm new to Harmonix/Red Octane games, they seem to have a pretty decent fanbase but as a first time customer to them, I'm not terribly impressed thus far. I received one of the faulty Guitars and have still yet to hear officially from them (via their site or if they bother to respond to my e-mails) as to how I'm meant to get it replaced - couple that with less than impressive DLC thus far and I have to say they have a long way to go to get in my good books.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cgenman ( 325138 )
      Generally, the case in video games is that prices are set by the publisher, not the developer.

      Just sayin'...

  • At this level of pricing, to purchase all 47 tracks from GH1 would cost roughly 7,850 points or $98 USD. That does not sound reasonable. So much for Activision extending the life of GH2 by allowing to you purchase content, it looks like they're more interested in milking GH2 for all that it's worth until the release of GH3 (which is coming out sooner than it should).

  • No Problem Here (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PixieDust ( 971386 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:52AM (#18691179)
    I for one, have 0 problems with this. It would be nice to be able to pick and choose specific songs, but on the flipside of that, I've discovered songs that I never would have otherwise, just because they're already there. This will be much the same for me.

    As for the person that made the comment aobut how everything with XBox Live Marketplace being absurdly overpriced let me offer a counter view. I've had the 360 since shortly after it came out, and not until the last few months did I start buying actual 360 games for it. I do, however, have a TON of "XBox Live Arcade" games downloaded. The one I play the most, Texas Hold 'Em, I got while it was offered as a free download. And you know what? I've gotten more enjoyment from the Arcade games offered, at worst about $10 a pop, than I have out of most $50 games I've purchased. Those I generally play through, then lose interest. I will occasionally revisit them (The Sonic Mega Collection I got for the original XBox was one of the best games I'd purchased in a long time, just because it had all the Sonic Goodness (plus some of the mistakes) in one package. I barely play the Sonic games anymore. It isn't that I don't like them, but I've played them a lot. They dont' change much. In a single player game, once you've gone through it, unless it's a TRULY DYNAMIC game, there's not really much left to it. That's where multiplayer comes into play. If the multiplayer fails, the game fails. It has no replay value. With downloadable content, that changes things. Guitar Hero also has the added benefit of being able to play against, or with other people. It has ALL the makings of a GREAT game, with GREAT replay value.

    Am I willing to shell out a bit more for a game that is going to provide me with countless hours of good clean fun? Damn straight I am. Everyone else can go sit in a corner and whine and cry all they want, in the meantime I'm going to crank up the sound, and have fun.

    It's funny, the most enjoyable games I've played to date on the XBox 360 have been Guitar Hero II, some DDR style game my roomate bought, Texas Hold 'Em, Worms, Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I didn't even buy NFS because I knew the replay value on it would suck. Still, it was fun to cruise around in my souped up Pink Mitsubishi. You hear on the radio "Suspect is driving a Pink Mitsubishi". But we just got the Guitar, and DDR game. We've mostly just been playing Arcade games ont he 360. Oh, and Geometry Wars, can't believe I almost left that one out. FANTASTIC. Other than that, our 360 is used to stream media from our computers. The 360 is far and above the pittance we paid for it (We have the Premium one, 1st-gen when they still came with the media remote), and the content is thus far, more than worth what we pay. I've considered purchasing television episodes from the marketplace as well, and if I could offload them to my computer, I would without hesitation.

  • They choose a value p such that s(p)×p > s(p+1)×(p+1) and s(p)×p > s(p-1)×(p-1), where s(p) is an estimate of the total sales at price p.

    Now then. Let's look at what happens to this equation when we add the extra costs of transcription t. Well, looks like there's no t in the equation, so what happens is nothing at all! So even if they could get the content for free, and convert it for free, they'd still charge the same amount for them because this maximises their profits, and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Eivind ( 15695 )
      True. Except that in a stable market prices will always be above production-costs. (atleast above marginal production-cost)

  • There seems to be a misunderstanding of sound engineering here. In this current day and age, it's not possible to seperate different instruments/vocals into separate tracks from a master recording (with a few RARE exceptions). Mixing sound only really happens in one direction, you can mix a multi-track studio recording into a single track master recording, but not a single track recording into a multi-track recording. Guitar Hero requires separate tracks for the guitars/basses so that they can be fed thro
  • As others have mentioned, there's more to this than the RIAA "double-dipping":

    -The fingering charts. As others noted, RedOctane employees have made these charts for four levels, and any StepMania fan knows that it's not quite an easy job to match icons to timed, sometimes rhythmically-complex music. RedOctane has skilled musicians/nerds doing this dirty work, and they require money.

    -Re-recording the songs. A lot of people are missing this--maybe because the covers on Guitar Hero are so well-performed and re
  • Wow... I can't believe the outrage. I'm guessing it's mostly stemmed from the disinformation that the original guitar hero game had 47 songs in it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_hero [wikipedia.org]

    Sorry, the 17 independent songs don't count. There are only 30 career mode tracks, which are the ones anyone would care about. If you bought all of these, it would be $62.50. Fine, a bit pricey but most people will only buy what they really like. They should bundle all 30 songs for 40-50 bucks, but it's not a big deal. I'll

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ender- ( 42944 )
      Sorry, the 17 independent songs don't count. There are only 30 career mode tracks, which are the ones anyone would care about. If you bought all of these, it would be $62.50. Fine, a bit pricey but most people will only buy what they really like. They should bundle all 30 songs for 40-50 bucks, but it's not a big deal. I'll definitely buy maybe three or four packs (20 bucks worth) and be completely happy with it.

      I just hope they release the upcoming 80s pack on 360 via downloadable content. The price point
  • Everybody loved PS2 GH2.

    360 GH2 is the same, but with better graphics and more songs.

    The downloadable content is just an extra option, to buy if you want it - that's all.

    If you think it's too much, don't buy it and just enjoy the game you've already got.

    Personally I did wince a little bit at the price, but it does show they're going to support the game and hopefully if they make enough cash from selling the extra songs - they might full their f'in finger out and patch the game to give online play.

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