Rock Band gets a release date, and some disappointing news

Here's the Gamespot article.

The release date is June 22. Sooner than I thought. Too bad that's the only good news.

The wording of the press release (see below) makes it sound like the Wii version won't have any online functionality whatsoever. It's basically a PS2 port with a handful of extra songs. Here's the reasoning:

"However, because the Wii's online capabilities and potential have yet to be fully realized, we wanted to wait before we explored online functionality for Rock Band to ensure that players get the high-quality of online performance they've come to expect."

My assumption when Rock Band was originally announced was that they were waiting for Nintendo to provide some kind of method for purchasable downloadable content. Nintendo did that recently by announcing the Pay to Play service along with the fact that any DLC will be available through each game's software, not through the Wii Shop channel. Apparently that wasn't enough for Harmonix.

But that doesn't explain the lack of basic online play. Guitar Hero 3 has nearly flawless online multiplayer with leaderboards and everything. Maybe we're just reading too much into this press release, but you would think that any online functionality would be highlighted as a major selling point. In all honesty, the leaderboards and online scoring are what have kept me interested in GH3 for all this time. Without anything like that, I can't justify a nearly $200 purchase for the occasional Rock Band party.

Does this announcement change your feelings about the game at all?

Does this announcement change your feelings about the game at all?

JordanElek

So this might be a perfect time for Nintendo to come out of there shell and announce their very own add-on hard-drive!

Just maybe....

This is one of the reasons why I own a 360 as well as a Wii, Wii seems to get the short end of the stick on a lot of third party games, some are just better suited to 360/PS3 with their more fleshed out online gaming, online stores, and hard drives.

Rock band being a prime example.

So this might be a perfect time for Nintendo to come out of there shell and announce their very own add-on hard-drive!

Just maybe....

MarioMellow

Did you not understand Jordan's post?

It has nothing to do with storage, it has to do with a way they can get paid for downloadable content

Read latest update... Harmonix made a mistake with their approach to the Wii. I wanted to buy the game, but now I will save my money.

[QUOTE="MarioMellow"]

So this might be a perfect time for Nintendo to come out of there shell and announce their very own add-on hard-drive!

Just maybe....

Jaysonguy

Did you not understand Jordan's post?

It has nothing to do with storage, it has to do with a way they can get paid for downloadable content

It has everything to do with storage. Downloads for the Rockband on 360 are averaged at around 30 MB a song with some songs coming in at over 50MB. That means you could only fit about 10 songs on the entire internal memory, and that's providing you have no games saves/VC games/etc. on there already. This storage issue is getting so ridiculous.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"][QUOTE="MarioMellow"]

So this might be a perfect time for Nintendo to come out of there shell and announce their very own add-on hard-drive!

Just maybe....

Rocky32189

Did you not understand Jordan's post?

It has nothing to do with storage, it has to do with a way they can get paid for downloadable content

It has everything to do with storage. Downloads for the Rockband on 360 are averaged at around 30 MB a song with some songs coming in at over 50MB. That means you could only fit about 10 songs on the entire internal memory, and that's providing you have no games saves/VC games/etc. on there already. This storage issue is getting so ridiculous.

Yeah it's such an issue they didn't even mention it

Well of course. How silly of me not to jump to that conclusion.

So what you're saying is that everything they said up there is a lie and they're afraid to come out with the truth

It's an interesting viewpoint, I'll grant you that

I do think storage is an issue in general, but not really in this case. An SD card could easily be used to store songs. Retrieving data from an SD card wouldn't be too difficult for Rock Band. The only internal memory you'd need is enough to hold the song you're currently playing, then it can delete the song from the Wii's memory.

I don't think it's possible for DLC to be "patched in" at a later date. If the software is released without any DLC options, then it never will have those options. We haven't seen any kind of patch for a Wii game, not even from Activision to fix GH3's sound issues. That leads me to believe that either Nintendo doesn't allow it or it isn't possible.

Rock Band is a blast with friends in the room, but for me, that won't happen very often, maybe once a week at the most. The majority of my time with the game would be spent playing alone; and without any kind of leaderboard system, it would lose a lot of its value for me. Knowing how good I am compared to others is what drives me to improve in Guitar Hero.

But like I said in the first post, some of this is speculation based on Harmonix' vague language. There is still some hope for online leaderboards at least, but I think we can pretty much count out online multiplayer and DLC. Hope I'm wrong.

And im fine with no DLC as long as theres Online.jdiamnz69

You say that now, but by the time RB comes out on the Wii, there will be over 100+ DLC songs available that you won't have access to and will definitely be wanting cause lets be real, you can only play the same songs over and over till the point you get sick of them.

Even though there was no mention about storage being a reason why the Wii version isn't getting DLC, I honestly think it was a factor cause for those who don't know, one DLC song averages around 25 MBs. You work out the math.

I think it's great that the Wii is getting RB, but at the same time, Wii owners are getting gimped as it's not the whole experience Harmonix has been pushing all along for RB and that is making RB a platform where you have the option of adding to your music library.

*Anticipates the 6 Boston DLC songs*

Any news on if they`re selling software alone? Ill surely buy it if does that cause we have the GH3 guitar.movin_target

[QUOTE="movin_target"]Any news on if they`re selling software alone? Ill surely buy it if does that cause we have the GH3 guitar.Haziqonfire

But they also said that the peripherals won't use the Wii remote. That makes it sound like the GH3 guitar won't work with Rock Band.

[QUOTE="Haziqonfire"][QUOTE="movin_target"]Any news on if they`re selling software alone? Ill surely buy it if does that cause we have the GH3 guitar.JordanElek

But they also said that the peripherals won't use the Wii remote. That makes it sound like the GH3 guitar won't work with Rock Band.

Here's the Gamespot article.

The release date is June 22. Sooner than I thought. Too bad that's the only good news.

The wording of the press release (see below) makes it sound like the Wii version won't have any online functionality whatsoever. It's basically a PS2 port with a handful of extra songs. Here's the reasoning:

"However, because the Wii's online capabilities and potential have yet to be fully realized, we wanted to wait before we explored online functionality for Rock Band to ensure that players get the high-quality of online performance they've come to expect."

My assumption when Rock Band was originally announced was that they were waiting for Nintendo to provide some kind of method for purchasable downloadable content. Nintendo did that recently by announcing the Pay to Play service along with the fact that any DLC will be available through each game's software, not through the Wii Shop channel. Apparently that wasn't enough for Harmonix.

But that doesn't explain the lack of basic online play. Guitar Hero 3 has nearly flawless online multiplayer with leaderboards and everything. Maybe we're just reading too much into this press release, but you would think that any online functionality would be highlighted as a major selling point. In all honesty, the leaderboards and online scoring are what have kept me interested in GH3 for all this time. Without anything like that, I can't justify a nearly $200 purchase for the occasional Rock Band party.

Does this announcement change your feelings about the game at all?

JordanElek

It gets worse, "The feature-set is a lot closer to the PS2 version of Rock Band which was also developed by Pi Studios." This means it's going to be the watered down version of the real game. I was never planning on buying the game, but this just confirms my nonpurchase.

"However, because the Wii's online capabilities and potential have yet to be fully realized, we wanted to wait before we explored online functionality for Rock Band to ensure that players get the high-quality of online performance they've come to expect."

JordanElek

hold on while i run this through my corperate PR crap translator machine.

loading....please stand by.

right it goes something like this:

"we dont want to invest extra money into making the same available features on wii that are on the other 2 consoles because its too much work, itll cost too much and we dont think this product will sell on wii anyway. we dont take the wii seriously as a gamiong console so were just doing a quick and dirty PS2 port with a couple of small extras."

Lets start a petition and send it to Harmonix or whoever so they will take us seriously and change it. I'll start it.

Swampton

Lets start a petition and send it to Harmonix or whoever so they will take us seriously and change it. I'll start it.

Swampton

swampton

No. One, an online petition will do nothing since the game already has a set release date within a couple months. And two, I don't want this thread taken over by a list of names. Let's keep the discussion going.

Just kiddin dude.swampton

Well you know that too many people would take it seriously. ;)

Hmmm... I'm glad that I got this for 360

[QUOTE="Rocky32189"][QUOTE="Jaysonguy"][QUOTE="MarioMellow"]

So this might be a perfect time for Nintendo to come out of there shell and announce their very own add-on hard-drive!

Just maybe....

Jaysonguy

Did you not understand Jordan's post?

It has nothing to do with storage, it has to do with a way they can get paid for downloadable content

It has everything to do with storage. Downloads for the Rockband on 360 are averaged at around 30 MB a song with some songs coming in at over 50MB. That means you could only fit about 10 songs on the entire internal memory, and that's providing you have no games saves/VC games/etc. on there already. This storage issue is getting so ridiculous.

Yeah it's such an issue they didn't even mention it

Well of course. How silly of me not to jump to that conclusion.

So what you're saying is that everything they said up there is a lie and they're afraid to come out with the truth

It's an interesting viewpoint, I'll grant you that

Like has been said in the past, Nintendo has set up a system where they can get paid for content so that shouldn't be an issue.

Why would Harmonix set up a store with hundreds of downloadable songs when only a few can fit on the system? It's not worth it.

So if storage isn't the issue (in your opinion), what is?

more news:
- Bonus songs will be announced at a later date
- no character creation
- no Mii support
- no support for GHIII guitar
- Instruments don't need to be connected to Wwiimotes
- ship with USB hub
- DPL II, 480p
--
Another article on gonintendo also has a developer saying Wii's online does not have capabilities to issue patch updates. :(
Haziqonfire

Link?

[QUOTE="Haziqonfire"]more news:
- Bonus songs will be announced at a later date
- no character creation
- no Mii support
- no support for GHIII guitar
- Instruments don't need to be connected to Wwiimotes
- ship with USB hub
- DPL II, 480p
--
Another article on gonintendo also has a developer saying Wii's online does not have capabilities to issue patch updates. :(
jharv

Link?

There has been alot of dicussion about memory, but i have been reading that they have cards that have aton of memory. I am not a techy so obviously i don't know about compatabilty. I came across a article that says cards can have a huge amount of memeory, more so than a harddrive.

"The SDHC specification allows for cards all the way up to 2048GB (that's two terabytes!)"