Making Music Interview

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Eurogamer: Come on now. They're both music games that work with drum kits and microphones...

Dan Teasdale: At least from a design perspective, we're going after two completely different audiences. Rock Band is about an authentic band gameplay experience. We want people to have fun at parties, and we want to reach a wide audience.

We developed the original Guitar Hero as a more technical experience. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a valid experience; it's just not what we're going for.

I don't sit around going, "How do we beat Guitar Hero?" I don't need to. My team's got more than enough great ideas.

John Drake: We're not thinking about one-upping, we're trying to make the best game we can... Their game focuses on totally different stuff to our game in certain respects. We're spreading a very large music catalogue with a ton of songs, they have a music creator in their game, and it's very cool and very different. People can play both. It's just like Call of Duty competing with another shooter.

Dan Teasdale: Call of Duty and Halo are both great franchises you can enjoy. It's the same with Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Eurogamer: But you don't need to pay hundreds of pounds to get the most out of Call of Duty and Halo... What's happening with instruments for Rock Band 2? Will there be a bundle?

Dan Teasdale: We're going to do separate instruments at launch. Eventually we will release a bundle. It's the same philosophy we had in the US and it's worked out really well, not just for us but for consumers who just want to pick up drums or the game by itself or whatever.

John Drake: We're really trying to give people the option to not have to spend over EUR 200 on one box.

I like microphones, but I couldn't eat a whole one.

Eurogamer: Europe got some exclusive tracks when Rock Band 1 was released. Are you going to do the same thing for Rock Band 2?

Dan Teasdale: We're focusing more on the platform as a way to get music out to people. We learned that people in the US also want to listen to music from the UK, France, Germany... So what you'll see is more localised content delivered through the music store, so everyone can enjoy it.

I would say, if you have indie bands in the UK that you want to get into Rock Band, post on RockBand.com. We read everything and take it into account.

Eurogamer: You mentioned the recording studio in Guitar Hero earlier. Do you wish you'd included a similar feature in Rock Band 2?

Dan Teasdale: We've dabbled with stuff like that in FreQuency and Amplitude. Our take from that was, you have to do it properly. You need to support all the instruments, you have to have songs longer than three minutes, you have to support more than 1200 notes... So our focus on that kind of experience is going to be on making it authentic, making it fit with the platform and giving people a fully-featured way to do that.

Eurogamer: How much is the full Rock Band 2 set-up going to cost?

John Drake: We're looking to be as close to what people are hoping for as possible. We hope people keep in mind it's very expensive to make a game of this size and weight and shape. It's not just a disc, it's a huge box full of metal and plastic, and there are complications that come along with that.

It's really fun, it's a great experience, and I think it's worth the money that's being charged for it. If people haven't checked it out and they're just complaining it's too expensive, they should go hands-on then judge the experience.

Look out for more on the clash between Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 soon.

You can always expand your Rock Band 1 set, split the cost with a friend, just add the instruments you want from Rock Band 2, just buy the game - there are lots of ways to play.

Europe and especially the UK is one of the birthplaces of rock and roll, so the more Rock Band we can have going on right here, the better.

Eurogamer: Steady on, now. This isn't a press release.

John Drake: I know you're not going to type that up, I'm just saying... I'm sure you'll cut out the bit about you liking Lionel Richie, too.