360 Gamer Forum

I have been reading (possibly) the latest issue and there was a very interesting piece about the future of Guitar Hero. The arguement you guys put forward was that if GH broke away from the console market and charged £100 for a guitar / mic / drum & box that plugged straight into the tv it would be a very dangerous times for consoles. Losing a major "cash-cow" could cost console manufacturers millions and I suppose you could argue that we the gaming faithful would have to pay more for stuff to support the loss of the GH income.

However, i have to say that i completely disagree and its not GH holding the console manufacturer's to ransom, but possibly the other way around.

Firstly, if you wanted to play GH, would you pay £100 for something that can play GH and nothing else or £150 for an entry level console £10 for GH:WT Solus (as seen in Asda today) and then as little as £40 for some band in a box instruments. Now I know that £200+ seems steep but i dont think it's enough of a saving that people would rather spend half that to ONLY play GH.

Secondly, are GH HQ actually thinking about the non-gamer. For those not willing to pay £200+ to play GH, are they ever going to pay for a console anyway? If the answer is no, and actually stand-alone GH units are simply adding to the gaming market, and not reducing or segregating it.

And if a sector of folks is reluctant to buy a gmaes console but then gets into rocking out, then surely there is a implication that during the next console generation, instead of buying another GH unit, they may be tempted into the console world, as outlined in my first point.

And of course there's the arguement of GH vs RB. If GH went solo as it were and foilks were forced to buy stand alone units, arent the console-owning public going to stick with alternatives like Rock Band to play along with?? I'm not a gaming insider but i would guess the number of console owners who would rather buy RB than fork out for a GH stand alone would cost the GH guys more money than they would make from solo units.

I think that GH aiming to get into the non-console owning market may not be a bad move for us gamers and could long-term lead to an increase in our numbers. But if they leave the market of console owners, surely the competitors will thrive and they'll be out of business before the next console generation hits the shops.

Interesting counter there Harrier.
I guess though what would happen if the makers of guitar hero say activision (not sure who they are actually) created a unit that played all actvision games, ie. modern warfare 2 etc. suddenly it could be more financially beneficial for activision at least (not us console owners) to create they're own unit. It could potentially lead to a situation where only the smaller independant studios need an xbox, ps or such?

That had never occurred to me reading the article, what DID occur to me however was if Activision do go forward with this, how does DLC work ?

At the moment, I've got a good few songs for rock band, and I'd imagine the same can be said of any GH owner. I also know that the DLC for both franchises can be played on older/newer versions of the game in question.

Now if Activision release a plug and play mic/drum/guitar setup, surely they'd need to include some kind of storage device for DLC. And if that happened, would any of the tracks I'd previously downloaded to the console based games be playable on the new kit ? Or would Activision milk it further and charge me again for what I've already got.

To be honest, when I read that article, I thought it sounded very ominous indeed. Not an industry killer, but still, dangerous times. I wouldn't buy any proposed plug and play stuff, it's just a milking of the cash cow too far for my liking.

It will suit people who WANT to play shit like guitar hero. The rest of us will be quite happy playing proper games.

Oh trev, you don't know how close you've come to a punching

That was a bit misinterpreted by you cos of my iPod. As editing is very difficult on these things (as you well know!) I didn't edit that after I'd written it, but I meant it would suit morons who ONLY want to play shit like Guitar Hero.

Dredd Wrote:Now if Activision release a plug and play mic/drum/guitar setup, surely they'd need to include some kind of storage device for DLC. And if that happened, would any of the tracks I'd previously downloaded to the console based games be playable on the new kit ? Or would Activision milk it further and charge me again for what I've already got.

Most likely not as I'm guessing the storage device used with the xbox is unique to Microsoft thus if they (activision) were to go solo with thier own unit then its a case of start all over again.

Yeah, the owners of GH are never going to let you get your xbox downloads and move them onto their own little device, and even if they tried, i cant imagine Bill Gates & co. being too happy with the notion.

And I also agree that surely there arent too many folks who would ONLY play GH. They are great, and this week i've really enjoyed a couple of sessions of rocking out, but I also like a blast on Scene It, and then Gears, and then Fallout. And each of these games suits a different mood. I cant see me ever selling my xbox to buy a stand alone for each of my mood swings!

Alls I know is, if Activision do break away and do this, they can't offer me anything over and above what I can get on a console.

No standalone piece of kit will make me buy it if all it does is play one game.

I have my consoles for that, and on them I have the ability to play any game I like.

Except for take electronic arts for exampe, a mighty fine extremely large player in the games market, or activision, again an extremely large player. There are many games within thier libary that you would pay good money to play? I'm not saying this is going to happen, however more over publishing houses are establishing a base where if they launch a game, because of thier name you take that game serious. Now if they launch enough of thier top games on a exclusive set top box, then whats to say they won't succeed?