Dhani Harrison helping with RB controllers News

Achievement Unlocked - Complained that it hurts your fingers and want the plastic guitar back - 15G

I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON ME FINGERS!

I would really like to see an additional accessory for some way of strapping the guitar, mic and drums to yourself and playing the whole game as a one man band.

Or failing that use duck tape and be charged £120 for it.

what has Dhani Harrison done to qualify himself for this? he may be the son of one of the best musicians ever, but being somebody's kid is hardly a qualification

@ nuanimal:

That's not as difficult a situation to arrange than you might think. All you need is a mic stand with a boom arm on it so it reaches over the drums, which are usually around £20. You could hang a guitar or two off yourself and sit at the drums. No idea how you'd manage to play like that, but it's very possible.

I wonder if this'll mean that the next game's guitars are different at all. I've not upgraded my original Rock Band guitar to a wireless one, or one of those nice Beatles themed ones, but this might be a good opportunity. Probably the drums wouldn't be so different, as with a set of cymbals they're quite close to a proper drum kit. Hi hat pedal is still missing, but I don't expect they're going to fill a fake guitar's with every possible fret button either, so there's room for some imagination still.

What has Dhani Harrison done, you say? Why, he "put it together"! He "made it happen"! He "saw the potential"! He "tapped the market"! He "commercialised the venture"! He "spun out the project"! He "managed our expectations"!

*He probably did nothing, really! But, he sure sounds like he's full of shit ;)

"I'm working on Rock Band and making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game"

The first part of that sentence seems fair, but everything after "so people..." seems a bit fluffy to me.

Do we define "play music" as meaning the player can actually change the melody at their whim (in which case, thats not the same game and needs bigger changes than just the controller), or do we mean that they produce a prescribed melody as a result of their input (which is exactly what is happening already)?

It's already been done with the piano and guitar. See: (The rather excellent) Garageband premium lessons.

And the 'more real' guitar controller wil of course come with a premium price tag, at least twice as expensive as the normal plastic ones. That makes it three times more expensive than a real guitar... and you've learned music lesson 1: musicians are full of shit and shouldn't make children.

When will they learn that most people who play GH/RB play these games because they want to have fun playing music without learning an instrument.

Being son of someone called George = musician or president

To be fair. Dhani is a pretty good musician in his own right, but I can see your point.

Of course... we probably ought to learn to play real guitars... This is a bit like when people say - I'm sure the World Air Guitar Champion could play for real - he's that good. No he's not, he's just some bafoon rolling around on the floor while a System Of A Down song plays in the background...

@ JahB

Pssst. Y'know that song from thenewno2 that you get free with Rock Band 2's download code?

Yeah, that's his band.

Interesting direction. I wondered why they never made a Special Edition of RB2 where you could unlock video instrument lessons for doing well in the game. But y'know, un-tapped markets and all that

Well, a music game where you did learn something, other than the lyrics/melodies would be a good idea. Why throw crap at him for that?