Guitar Hero Developer Announces Rock Band

figgen writes "Gamers and music fans have been waiting on details for the next Harmonix project, now that the company has been purchased. The development team behind Guitar Hero announced Rock Band via USA Today. The title is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and will expand on the concept by adding singing and drumming into the mix. 'With MTV as a partner, Harmonix was able to sign deals with the major forces in the music publishing industry and has access to the master recordings of music from popular artists. Electronics Arts is also involved, and will use its global reach to help distribute the game.' GameSpot had a chance to sit down with Harmonix's Alex Rigopulos and EA Partners' David DeMartini to talk about the upcoming title."

Comments

Whew

[travdaddy]

For a second there, I thought he had announced he was creating his own rock band. I can only imagine him playing a song hitting only five buttons while the fans all put out mats and step on them.

It's known as a "game."

[Rob T Firefly]

I'm gonna produce a Playstation game that just flashes up some scrolling text, stating the following:
Learn to play REAL instruments, and write your OWN fucking songs.

Will that come before or after the ones that scroll "drive your OWN fucking NASCAR vehicle," "join your OWN fucking Major League Baseball team," or "get your OWN fucking BFG 9000 to blow up REAL demons from Hell?"

Re:Drummania comparison

[Mattintosh]

1) I'm a non-PS2 player that heard about Guitar Hero and knew it was highly regarded without ever playing it. I had never heard of Guitar Freaks until after I had played Guitar Hero. So there's a marketing issue, at the very least.

2) Apparently, other guitar games lack the over-the-top stereotyping of the characters presented in the game that GH has. I've not played any of the others, but I would assume that the "fun level" just isn't the same without the atmosphere GH builds.

3) Guitar Freaks uses a different control scheme (and from what I gathered from the description, IMHO, it's probably "clunky").

Re:Drummania comparison

[MDiehr]

The three big differences are: 1. Setlist - GH has Western Rock and Metal, I'm not sure how to describe Guitar Freak's setlist. 2. Number of frets - Guitar Freaks has 3, and Guitar Hero has 5. Guitar Hero emphasizes scales and chords a lot more. 3. How forgiving the timing is - Guitar Freaks requires a lot more precision to hit notes. Also, GH has a whammy bar.

Genius way to develop this game.

[kinglink]

First they release Karaoke revolution, a game that's popular in Japan and now in America.

Karaoke revolution 2 introduces Duets for Americans.

Then they release Guitar hero, a game that explodes in popularity.

Then they release Guitar hero 2, introducing the cooperative guitar players.

And now they release Rock band, a game which takes everything they learned and adds drums into it. Plus working with EA probably helps them get online working which can only improve the game.

Hell I could even mention frequency and amplitude for timing and visualization but the point is that they essentially made every part of this game into it's own game except for drumming. Very cool Harmonix.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Aladrin]

You're trolling, but I'm gonna bite anyhow.

Yeah, the music lessons and years of practice don't enter into the equation at all, eh? Not everyone is a musical god and can just look at an instrument and play it. The non-musicians of the world sometimes actually enjoy to pretend to make music in a game environment.

Games are for having fun, and Guitar Hero really hit a chord (haha) with some people. They obviously expect that Rock Band will, too.

Re:As insightful as jello brand gelitan.

[SlamMan]

You can pick up a guitar, and learn to play in a few years of actual practice or you can have fun with Guitar Hero after 2 or 3 minutes of figuring out the controller.