New Guitar Hero every year

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 April, 2007

With regular content packs.

Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane says it plans to offer "one major release" of Guitar Hero every year from now on, backed up with regular content packs through online services, which will include new songs.

Guitar Hero III - due out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 at the end of the year - may also be offered with several new guitar options.

"We've got designs for different guitars, whether that's new shapes or new colours; we've got designs obviously for wireless, which we'll be releasing at the end of this year for all platforms; and then we're looking at really cool interesting finishes and different ideas that we can do with the guitar to make them a little bit more exciting, and in fact we're even looking at making some higher-end guitars that might be made out of real wood," RedOctane president and co-founder Kai Huang told Eurogamer in an interview published today.

He also defended the pricing of the first bundles, which appeared on Live Marketplace last week. "We think that they're priced competitively," he explained, "but certainly we listen to the fans and we take that feedback, and if that's something we'll need to evaluate we'll do that."

For more on all that, including the latest on getting PS2 guitars to work on PS3, check out the full Guitar Hero III interview.

Picture of Tom.

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!

  • octo #1 5 years ago

    If you think they are priced competitively, you are wrong.

  • LetsGo #2 5 years ago

    c'mon you know every year a new controllers gonna be released with a 'new' feature needed to play the game......

  • peteb #3 5 years ago

    We think that they're priced competitively...

    Competitively priced against what?

    At the minute the only thing they are competing against, is my beer budget, and they are losing...

    Make them cheaper you gits!

  • BBIAJ #4 5 years ago

    Major's excuse for the price of the packs is that the songs need to be re-licensed all over again, and it's not just the once, but several times for the various territories, and then they have to be re-tested and re-programmed etc.

    So, basically he's saying that there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that people aren't seeing, and so they just see 3 songs for 500M$ Points as a rip-off.

    Not to mention that releasing one song on it's own would be more expensive in the long run than these bundles...
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/07 @ 15:38

  • The-Bodybuilder #5 5 years ago

    dun dun dun...........another one bites the (greedy) dust.

  • Talha #6 5 years ago

    Not necessarily. The last four decades are chock full of amazing guitar songs, and some good ones come out every year. So every year it would be a new song list.

  • Mr_Whacker #7 5 years ago

    I hope they do a delux guitar that doesn't look quite so toy-like.

  • bonker #8 5 years ago

    "We think that they're priced competitively...

    Competitively priced against what? "

    Exactly, they're competing against f-all that I'm aware of ...

  • bonker #9 5 years ago

    "I hope they do a delux guitar that doesn't look quite so toy-like. "

    Well as gay as this may sound, I've gotten into GH2 so much that I'd actually like a 'proper' guitar to be able to play the game with and yes, I may even be talking about proper frets/strings etc.

    If they could come up with some kinda hybrid game/real guitar thang I think I'd invest in that quite heavily with the hopeful dual objective of having fun with the game and also actually learning to play the guitar for real ...
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/07 @ 15:57

  • Draqule #10 5 years ago

    What they Say - What they mean: Issue 26

    "We think that they're priced competitively, but certainly we listen to the fans and we take that feedback, and if that's something we'll need to evaluate we'll do that."


    "We thought we'd get away with 500 points....we were waaay off. We currently have our marketing department thinking up a good excuse for why the next ones will be cheaper"

  • speedjack #11 5 years ago

    I bought 1000 MS points thinking (foolishly) that each pack would be no more than 300 each.

    The 500 point price put me off completely and as a result I've yet to buy one.

  • bonker #12 5 years ago

    "I bought 1000 MS points thinking (foolishly) that each pack would be no more than 300 each.

    The 500 point price put me off completely and as a result I've yet to buy one. "

    Good for you.

  • bonker #13 5 years ago

    "Major's excuse for the price of the packs is that the songs need to be re-licensed all over again, and it's not just the once, but several times for the various territories, and then they have to be re-tested and re-programmed etc."

    Come on, 'programming' the songs must take someone about an hour for each song ...

    And correct me if i'm wrong but most of the songs are covers, yes? If they were originals then I'd be more inclined to cough up the cash ...

  • Toothball #14 5 years ago

    Well I paid the money. It's great to have the old songs back. My fingers felt right at home again.

  • ryohazuki1983 #15 5 years ago

    @bonker,

    you'd be surprised at how much effort goes into DLC, the packs would have to not only be tested internally but also have to go through certification...it all costs.

    It doesn't make sense that others were comparing them to buying the MP3s as its a totally different ball game, so to speak.

  • peteb #16 5 years ago

    "you'd be surprised at how much effort goes into DLC, the packs would have to not only be tested internally but also have to go through certification...it all costs. "

    why do we have to pay for all the aspects of the DLC though...its their job to sort that shit out, they should take the hit for some the costs instead of passing them on to us.

    or would that hurt their profit margins too much?
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/07 @ 16:40

  • smelly #17 5 years ago

    If they're gonna have song packs, why need a new version each year?

    Not as if a lot is changing gameplay/graphics wise between version.

  • alimokrane #18 5 years ago

    Well at 500MP for a freaking three songs, you competitve ??? WTF
    Well you can kiss my *ss, aint buying it!!

  • lennon #19 5 years ago

    I wouldnt disagree with that MM as I can see that it would take a rather long time to make sure that a song played and felt right although my argument with these tracks is that they have all ready made them and also made a shit load of cash out of them before so there was no need to screw their new/renewed customer base.

  • Ciaran500 #20 5 years ago

    "You should play the hacked discs, see how amateurs do at populating note charts, having spend several days on each one (hint: they SUCK), and then... erm... revise that estimate by a significant quantity, I would say."

    They're GH1 songs, they would just be using their note charts.

  • Draqule #21 5 years ago

    While I agree that the fact that these packs came out at 500 points and, more importantly, were cynically packaged was a bit of a misjudgment (and frankly a bit of a piss take). The idea that they just grabbed a bunch of note charts stuck em on marketplace and waited for the cash to roll in, is absurd

    Firstly, I assume the license for GH1 didn't cover DLC, so there goes a whole bunch o' cash. Then they have to convert everything to work on 360 (the easy part)
    It sounds very much like the rhythm guitar and bass parts for co-op have been re-recorded, or at the very least re-mastered. They then have to create 'from scratch, note charts for these new parts. Then after that's done it all has to be tested to ensure it meets the standard of quality expected and doesn't cause any problems when added to the game.
    Then it all has to be submitted to Microsoft and pass their certification process.
    Even once this is all done, do you really think it's free to host content on Marketplace ?

    Now, while none of the above is particularly out of the ordinary or complicated for a professional game developer, it's a time consuming process, costing tens of thousands of pounds and is a universe away from the fantasy land that's been created to justify having a whinge over what's essentially pocket change.

    /turns into Billy Zane
    /passes drink to attractive model
    /stands behind ManicMinerUK with arms folded

  • Derblington #22 5 years ago

    Oh do me a favour.. I was responding to a claim that creating a new note chart takes "about an hour"

    No-one said anything about 'new' note charts...

  • septimus #23 5 years ago

    Oh no... there goes another (possibly) great franchise to greed.

  • Barry619 #24 5 years ago

    So they released them at 500 mp and alot of people have refused to buy them at that price (me for one), so doesn't it make sense for them to put the price down to 300 (100 per song, which is what most of us were expecting and be willing to pay happily, i would buy ANY song at 100 just to play this amazing game more) and rather than make the money on the actual cost, reap the benifits of a much bigger percent of GHII, 360 owners downloading them?

    I don't know offcial figures, but i really think they would make more money the latter way, and as someone said it's pretty clear future packs are going to come out cheaper (or there just won't be anymore with so little people buying them) so i don't see any harm in lowing the price too 300, please!

    Look at it this way, 3D Mini golf comes out tomorrow, thats a full 3D brand new game, lots of complex coding to the avarage person and hours and hours of work gone into it... and it costs 800 ms points, thats around 4 1/4 Guitar Hero songs..... that isn't on!
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/07 @ 19:53

  • Turrican #25 5 years ago

    I really think they've got the price wrong on this one, its not the normal internet bitching, these are all people that were gearing up to buy these song packs who aren't going to anymore.

  • bonker #26 5 years ago

    ""Come on, 'programming' the songs must take someone about an hour for each song ... "

    Sorry, but that's an astonishingly ignorant comment...

    You should play the hacked discs, see how amateurs do at populating note charts, having spend several days on each one (hint: they SUCK), and then... erm... revise that estimate by a significant quantity, I would say. "

    I know nothing about hacked discs etc but I think it's equally 'off' to compare some 13 year old 'hackers' trying to reverse engineer 'code' to get extra songs in to the guys who do this for a living with the 'official tools and engine' to work with. Sure, I'll backtrack on the 'hour' but no f*cking way is it taking someone days to do this particularly when you get into economies of scale. They are, after all, just feeding different notes into an engine that takes care of all this and the DLC routine, technical and non-technical, will be the same for all the packs etc etc etc.

    So yes, as a one-off it's a bunch of work but when you're knocking out pack after pack there's no way it's a big effort.

    Also, I'd feel differently about it if they weren't bundling the songs together. I don't care if two out of the three songs are great if I'm having to pay for a 3rd one that I don't give a toss about cos I don't want it!

    If they want to make proper money outta this then set something proper up where I can pick 10 songs (tiered if you like) from a big list of popular and ORIGINAL tracks and I'll gladly pay more than you're asking me to now per song ...
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/07 @ 22:15

  • adfegg #27 5 years ago

    So, does this mean they're finally going to release a Christmas themed edition?

  • Maldoror #28 5 years ago

    how do I milked brand to death?

  • Ranger101 #29 5 years ago

    But Manic.... computers are MAGIC! You just push a few buttons and drag a few icons, and THINGS!(tm) happen!!!! AND they work the first time as well.... geez Manic get with the program, developing/coding is as easy as 1-2-3 these days, and we have no need for test cycles and QA, and play testing!



    On a serious note _bonkers_, in answer to your first request, Yamaha have an electronic guitar that has LED lined frets, and a computer input that allows you to visually learn and play guitar tabs through a combination of their software and playing the right notes/strings/frets depending upon what is lighting up. I think I saw it in Argos of all places.