Rock Band vs Guitar Hero III - Bitch Slapping

Music not the food of love after all.

Posted 13 Dec 2007 by Staff

This man has been waiting for the patch since he was 18.

Kids, let's play nice! That means you Harmonix and MTV Games (and EA, yes, we see you) telling tales on Activision for not authorising a patch to make Rock Band play using Guitar Hero controllers.

Yes, that's the latest in the ongoing tale of rock excess which is now overtaking the world of video games. It's playing out like The Beatles suing each other.

MTV Games (Electronic Arts is distributing) wants to give people the chance to play its rock music inspired party game, Rock Band using the guitars from the PlayStation 3 version of Guitar Hero. It, however, needs to release a patch from developer Harmonix - which was the original developer of... Guitar Hero.

Activision, which owns Guitar Hero III - which is developed by former Harmonix partner, Red Octane - won't let it.

In a statement to Wired and other publications, the Rock Band gang is crying foul as follows:

"The patch remains with Sony, but we have been told that it will unfortunately not be released due to Activision's continued objection.

"As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band. We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so.

"We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others will also adopt this philosophy. "

We think it's sweet that MTV Games and Harmonix want a free world in which everybody shares everything all the time. Possibly they could consider not forcing you to buy an entire Rock Band bundle (game, drums, microphone and a single guitar controller) and simply sell the controller more cheaply and as a standalone?

On the other hand, as the bloody Xbox 360 Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III controllers already work with Rock Band, maybe Activision could just agree to let the patch into the wild?

Or maybe we could simply boycott the whole fiasco until both sides grow up and play nice. Yes, it's naughty step time for corporate childishness.

^{Source: Wired - full text of letter is here.}