Sony To Set Compatibility Standards For PS3 Music Games 89
Michael Shorrock, Sony's director of third-party relations, announced on the Playstation blog that he's been working with the major music game developers (i.e. Rock Band's Harmonix, Guitar Hero's Activision, and others) to ensure basic compatibility for peripherals between the games. Joystiq has a compatibility matrix that shows which devices work with which games.
"...Rock Band 2's guitar and drum set will work with Guitar Hero: World Tour and with Rock Revolution. Conversely, Rock Revolution's drum set will work with both Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2. In addition, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 will both support the SingStar microphones. We're still working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market, and we hope to have an announcement on that shortly."
Update: 8/20 17:38 by SS: Reader TheWolfkin notes that Microsoft has now made an official announcement to do this as well.
Glad someone is doing this ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, it's a complete crap shoot.
The guitar which came with Rock Band for the Wii is a piece of crap, but it can't use my Guitar Hero guitars. For reasons completely unknown to me, the USB guitars from RB for the XBox don't even work with the USB hub that comes with RB on the Wii.
How is it even possible that a USB guitar isn't compatible across those two platforms unless RB only has support for the wireless guitar they issued for the Wii?
The idea of having to buy a whole separate set of instruments for GH4 drives me nutty.
It really would be good for someone to enforce some standardization so the consumer doesn't end up getting gouged.
Cheers
Re:Glad someone is doing this ... (Score:5, Interesting)
For reasons completely unknown to me, the USB guitars from RB for the XBox don't even work with the USB hub that comes with RB on the Wii.
You can blame Micro$oft for that one - their "not-quite-USB" controllers utilize a so-called "security" signing system that prevents so-called "unauthorized" peripherals from working, and M$ are being assholes about letting any but a few companies that have paid a butt-ton for near-monopoly access to the platform make anything.
For another example: M$ completely refuses to allow X-Arcade sticks [xgaming.com] to work, despite numerous attempts by the makers to PAY for the privilege of making an adapter.
And that pisses me off. I'd LOVE to play certain Live Arcade titles with a real arcade stick, for crying out loud.
Re:Glad someone is doing this ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have some more plus points about the PS3 in a post I wrote above (linux, standards, etc).
I disagree with the PS3's bluetooth remote being a flaw. I understand that it makes it harder to integrate with a universal remote. But i very much believe that universal remotes have buttons for the PS buttons.
but it has its advantages, like no need for line of sight, which i think outweigh any disadvantages.
I am not surprised that the PS3 bashing have reduced. When it came out, it was a fantastically engineered deviced, that had lousy firmware, few games, late, and overpriced. The bashing it received was well deserved, especially in light of the engineering effort on the hardware.
Recent Price drops, new much improved firmware (that added loads of extra features for free), better games, and the Success of Blu Ray over HDDVD (and the fact the PS3 is still one of the best BD Players).
It is a solid system, which still has a lot of potential and lifetime.
MS are on the other hand already muttering about a Xbox 720 :)
Re:Just showing appreciation (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact there is a YouTube video of some masochists, booting Linux on their PS3, then running Windows XP in VM Ware, crazy, considering there is not a LOT of memory there!
Those would be fakes then. PS3 is a PPC-based system. VMWare doesn't run on PPC. You could do it in Qemu, but it would be so slow that there would be no point.
Re:Just showing appreciation (Score:3, Interesting)
Their XviD/etc. video playback is still not entirely awesome, although I haven't checked since the last update. The PS3's wireless connection keeps dropping out, making streaming sometimes a chore; the Wii doesn't have this problem. Some files that the 360 could play, the PS3 couldn't.
I finally used the memory card slot the other day. I took out the SDHC card in my HD camera and put it into the slot. The card came up on video and the AVCHD video from my Canon camera played back without a problem.
The only thing the PS3 lacks as a great BD player is analog outs for audio. You're stuck with HDMI (great if your TV or receiver has it) or you have to use optical, which can downmix the audio depending on the format it is in.