Harmonix and Activision let PR statements fly as players wait for full compatibility between Rock Band and Guitar Hero hardware.
You know you've got an amazingly popular game on the market when acrimony and lawsuits start to fly. And when two very similar and tremendously successful games start to crowd the same space, trouble brews. Especially when the two games rely on similar, sometimes interchangeable hardware peripherals.
Such is the case with EA/MTV's Rock Band and Activision's Guitar Hero III. Those who own both games naturally might want to use peripherals from one with the other. The Rock Band bundle comes with only one guitar, but the game supports two guitarists and no stand-alone guitar is currently available.
Here's where things get tricky. On the Xbox 360, the Guitar Hero II Xplorer and Guitar Hero III Les Paul can be used with Rock Band. PlayStation3 owners, meanwhile, can't use the GHIII axe with Rock Band. And Guitar Hero III doesn't recognize the Rock Band Stratocaster on any platform.
The issue is more heated given the failure rate of Rock Band hardware. Stratocasters have been giving out at such a clip that EA set up a fast cross-shipping process to replace broken Strats within a couple of days. (We've had to use the replacement system once already, and can report on the speed and efficiency first-hand.) With a broken Stratocaster on hand, PlayStation3 owners naturally want to use the Guitar Hero III Les Paul to keep rocking.
Harmonix, MTV and EA quickly readied a patch for the PlayStation 3 to ensure that Activision's hardware would work properly with the game. But on the eve of the patch's release, with Sony ready to implement the update, representatives for Harmonix and EA claim that Activision blocked the patch, as indicated in the following statement.
"Two weeks ago, Harmonix created a software patch for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that allowed for guitar compatibility and support for third party peripherals, including enabling use of Activision's Guitar Hero III controller with Rock Band. The compatibility patch was submitted, approved and had been scheduled for release by Sony on Tuesday, December 4. Unfortunately, Activision objected to the release of the compatibility patch. The patch remains with Sony, but we have been told that it will unfortunately not be released due to Activision's continued objection."
Such a move is unprecedented within the games industry. Console wars are nothing new, and some third-party peripherals have been known to operate in limited capacity with games from other publishers. But never before has one publisher openly challenged another with respect to hardware interoperability.
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Posted: 17 Dec 2007
