From XboxOZ360:
"Well we know prices are dear here, we sort of expect it as a matter of course, but EA's official announcement of pricing for Harmonix's Rock Band is at $AU520 to fully equip yourself out with the full rig.
Now for a 'game' that is ludicrous to a major extent. It smacks of "we don't care about your market" and you'll pay it if you want it bad enough. Seriously, that's more than the cost of a top level SKU console. When we look at prices of the same item in the UK or the US, there's a huge difference in pricing."
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
Stuff EA....get the next Guitar Hero...
It's just ridiculous really, Rock Band 2 releases on teh 17th of October in the US and they only release the first one here (last on the world release list btw) on the 9th October, and at the cost of a Xbox 360 Elite . .Even if we gotthe game from the US, imported it gods and all, it would cost LESS to have in shipped here.
And we don't own a major publishing company with a shipping deal . . With the US greenback being almost the same as the Aust dollar, I'd expect to pay a premium for any item, but this is way above any Premium . .it's outrageous.
No wonder the shops won't stock it, or it's next game, as stores are saying they doubt they stock either of them. So if a game isn't getting banned, censored to fit in with a minor ratings system or Refused classification, it's being priced out of the ball park by many a greedy publisher.
Absolutely disgusting pricing. What is the US equivalent in pricing?
Thanks guys. Well its official, probably the biggest rip-off in gaming history. I really hope no one buys this game, show EA we won't accept this sh*t
Point is, many ppl will buy it if it does become available anyhow.
Not to the numbers needed locally, but there are those out there that see any price for a music orientated game well worth it . . . anything for a sudo-band experience. It's certainly NOT something I'd invest that amount into, that's for sure. As the game (Rock Band I can be bought off eBay for far less, even with an inflated ebay price point.