Activision questions Rock Band

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 August, 2007

Mainstream appeal under fire.

Activision believes that Rock Band will struggle to take its crown in the upcoming battle of the games about bands.

Speaking to GameDaily, global brand management chap Will Kassoy questioned the EA/MTV/Harmonix title's mass-market recognition and ease of use.

"I think some of the early signs we've seen might make [Rock Band] a little more complex than some of the things that make Guitar Hero so great, which is its accessibility and ease of play for everyone," he offered.

"If you go beyond the game industry to just really mass market consumers, people haven't heard about Rock Band yet and the fact that it's only on next-generation platforms is going to be a little bit limiting."

Guitar Hero III, Activision and Neversoft's attempt to continue in Harmonix's strutting footsteps, is also due out later this year and hits PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and DS, whereas Rock Band is limited to PS3 and 360.

For its part, EA put forward EA Games president Frank Gibeau, who said that Rock Band would be competitive.

"We'll compete, obviously, on who's got the better tracks and who's got the better music and who's first to market and who had the brand and who actually built the thing. That'll all come out in this Fall, and the market will help decide," he concluded.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Steroyd #1 5 years ago

    Guitar Hero III, Activision and Neversoft's attempt to continue in Harmonix's strutting footsteps, is also due out later this year and hits PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and DS

    GHIII is coming to DS awesome, Guitaring on the go.

    Is it me or is there alot of bitchin' among develops these days, or is Activision really that sore for losing Harmonix.

  • Maldoror #2 5 years ago

    Harmonix made Guitar Hero great, not Activision nor Red Octane.

  • Eighthours #3 5 years ago

    I hope that Rock Band wins, personlly.

  • RexRunti #4 5 years ago

    Business man says his product is better than competetor's shocker.

    Unfortunately I do see a lot more of developers taking PR lessons from manufactorers. Let's hope they don't take too many more, especially from Sony.

  • 3william56 #5 5 years ago

    My Dad's bigger than your Dad...

  • Machetazo #6 5 years ago

    "Rock Band" ..."Guitar" Hero.

    Isn't it very straightforward as to where even the coveted mass market consumer is going to see the most value, even if you just go from the names?
    Guitar Hero III also has to navigate the pitfall of being seen as 'another sequel'.
    I know that if I see one of those, it needs to offer something else to justify me buying another one.

  • Iora #7 5 years ago

    @manicminer

    Your joking right, the huge community is testament to Harmonixs love for the player base through its product

  • spadge #8 5 years ago

    Harmonix made GH great WITH the support and belief of Red Octane. Sometimes people underestimate partnerships and roles. The fact that Acti bought the GH brand and not Harmonix/RO themselves could be questioned methinks...

    I can see the point about it not hitting mass market though; 3-4 players, 3-4 devices, more complex etc. Am sure it'll be a massive hit (and like the other games, live or die on the tracks).

  • sanctusmortis #9 5 years ago

    Consumers revel in choice. You say to them "you can play guitars on our game for £70, but you can sing, drum and play guitar depending on what peripheral you buy with their game for probably the same", and it's obvious which they'll pick.

    As it stands, my wife wants to continue playing guitar, I want to drum, and both of us want to try out the singing, so...

  • Vandrius #10 5 years ago

    Rock Band, imo. Guitar hero just isn't as party-friendly as Rock Band will look to be.

    And I can't see any reason why smaller groups wouldn't be satisfied by Rock Band either...

    To top it off, 4 'roles' in Rock band will give it more longevity.

    Rock Band = Evolution.
    Guitar Hero 3 = Repetition.

  • peteb #11 5 years ago

    word is albums for rockband will be at least 15.99quid

  • Steroyd #12 5 years ago

    SINGSTAR \o/

  • Daryel #13 5 years ago

    Activision just want's to make sure with this comment no one forget about GH3 ... at the moment it dosnt look that impressiv anymore. The songs are "nice" but not great or awesome ... gameplay will be the same and this new mode with Guitar Battles is something no one needed or wanted.

    Rock Band on the other hand just looks like "WOW"... in the end the DLC will decide ...

  • jaluuk #14 5 years ago

    Manufacturer of rival product says 'The other product won't be as good as ours'.
    Rival manufacturer says 'Ours will be better'.

    Well, this is a surprise...

  • menage #15 5 years ago

    I think Rockband is a step to far, certianly in Europe. It's expensive (why not buy a Wii then?) and people don't see the novelty they had with GH because it's the same thing only with more players. And how many people actually have 3 friends who like this kind of thing.

  • jaluuk #16 5 years ago

    @menage

    Play online then.

    Plus - drum kit for the win. AFAIK you can't drum on Wii (I may be wrong?) but even so it won't have the feel of banging an actual real drum kit.
    Edited by 1 at 09/08/07 @ 10:35

  • Kazzahdrane #17 5 years ago

    Actually Harmonix didn't make Rocks the 80's, the last thing they made GH-wise was GH2 for the 360.

  • Kury #18 5 years ago

    Harmonix did develop Rock The 80s.

    GH2 on expert level is all the evidence needed that Harmonix despise their players with a passion...

    See also Rocks the 80's, and their DLC pricing policy...

    DLC pricing policy is Activision's. It will have to be seen how Harmonix will handle that for Rock Band. They already said songs will be individually buyable, which is already a big improvement over the forced bundles for GH2 DLC.

    And I really don't get why people complain that a difficulty setting called "Expert" might actually require more than a few casual tries to complete. I hardly ever bother replaying FPSs on highest difficulty but I do actually pop in GH2 every once in a while and try to improve (and you always seem to improve over time, even if you don't actually play).

  • nickthegun #19 5 years ago

    GHIII for me, because I havent got room in my living room for any more shit.

    And, frankly, I never have game enough playing friends round to be worth it.

  • Shanucore #20 5 years ago

    My band's bigger than your band, we got more songs than a song convention... sing it.

  • menage #21 5 years ago

    "Play online then. "

    Thta's the problem, where's the party in that.

  • revlob #22 5 years ago

    Stop calling them Next-Generation! All three "next-gen" consoles are here now, and have been for several months already.

  • captain-future #23 5 years ago

    Rock Band is interesting but I've to agree with that chap... I don't see that it will be as simple and fun as Guitar Hero.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #24 5 years ago

    it's obvious which they'll pick.

    Of course. They'll buy the game with the name they recognise, and avoid this 'New Guitar Hero Rip-off' with its over-expensive set of perpherals 'that you need'.

    Don't believe me? Have a look at the charts to see what people are buying, and talk to me about the intelligence and dicerning nature of the games buying public.

  • RexRunti #25 5 years ago

    @ManicMinorUK

    Why don't you try it on easy first?

  • DUFFKING #26 5 years ago

    If I bought RB i'd only play guitar so...

    GHIII.

  • ronuds #27 5 years ago

    Rock Band is a great idea, but too expensive IMO.

    It's going for $200 in the States and that's not including bonus content. I can get a Wii for that.

  • neuroniky #28 5 years ago

    @ManicMinerUK: "Harmonix were chasing difficulty over realism for that game, I feel. What sense does it make to put a mode in your game that only a tiny fraction of the people who buy your game will ever be able to play?"

    Well, first it is pretty standard to place an extra hard difficult level in any game, but in particular in music games. Have you ever played Dance Dance Revolution? Or Beatmania? Or any other Bemani games? Here the top songs are playable only by a very tiny fraction of the playerbase, but its great that they are there, so you have always a new holy grail to reach... I'm able to finish almost all the nine-star songs in DDR and having those elusive ten star to reach keeps me playing again and again...

    On GH2, the game frankly is not that much more difficult than GH1. Jordan is insane, ok, and Freebird has a couple of solo parts that are frightengthly hard, but the two aside there is no GH2 song that can't be constantly cleared and improved. The song chosen have more difficult solos, but I don't see ghost notes added just to raise the difficulty level, its just that the solos have more notes. Also the new HO/PO make many hard passages mch more easy, and if you have tried BatM on 360 you can see how big a difference the new HO/PO can make (BTW, where are the other two song packs promised for this summer?).

    Edit: oh, and I'm getting both Rock Band and GH3, but probably will play just the guitar parts anyway. I suck at playing drums :D.
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/07 @ 08:26

  • IzzyToxic #29 5 years ago

    "If you go beyond the game industry to just really mass market consumers, people haven't heard about Rock Band yet"

    Well, I'm not part of "game industry", but somehow I managed to hear about Rock Band. It seems that the Red Octane folks are once again taking the low road. Conversely, most of the comments that I've heard attributed to the Harmonix (Rock Band) folks are more along the lines of - "there is room for both franchises in the music/rhythm genre".
    It sounds to me like the GH folks are just a bit afraid of the Rock Band franchise. This is certainly understandable, however, I don't think they are scaring anybody away from Rock Band, in spite of all of their negative campaigning. They sound like they're running for political office instead of trying to sell their video game.