We won! Harmonix's Patch to Allow GH3 Guitars in Rock Band Finally Coming Out 9/11!!!

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http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-ac...pheral-compatibility-patch-delay--58054.phtml

Yesterday, we brought you news of an impending PlayStation 3 Rock Band controller compatability patch, by way of Harmonix. The headline read: "PS3 Rock Band getting controller compatibility patch today." Well, yesterday's "today" has come and gone, and PlayStation 3 owners longing to finally be able to use their wireless Gibson Guitar Hero III controllers with Harmonix's game are still waiting.

A trusted source has told Destructoid that the patch has indeed been submitted to Sony for approval, and (as promised) should have been available yesterday. What's the hold up? According to our source, Activision has actively attempted to block the release of the patch, even bringing their lawyers into the fray. While the obvious plan is for the patch to be available as soon as possible (it was announced yesterday, after all), until this is all worked out behind closed doors, PS3 shredders may be waiting a little longer.

Harmonix has been very clear that they're interested in an open standard for these peripherals, an idea clearly not shared by their competition. (The Rock Band Stratocaster guitar peripheral does not work with Activision's Guitar Hero on any platform; Guitar Hero controllers currently DO work with with Rock Band on the Xbox 360, but not on the PS3). We've pinged Activision for comment, and we'll update with information as we get it.
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I hope this isn't true since I'd like to get GH3 soon and have my bass guitar.

Edit(12/12/07): http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164953

Remember that rumor from Destructoid suggesting Activision was preventing the release of a Rock Band patch to enable compatibility with Guitar Hero III's Les Paul peripheral? Most people laughed it off (including us), but Harmonix has issued a statement to 1UP announcing that it's actually...true. A patch enabling support for the Les Paul on PS3 was submitted (and approved) to Sony, but Activision is holding its release.

"As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox 360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band," says Harmonix. "We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so."

"We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others in the industry will also adopt this philosophy," concludes the statement.

1UP is in the midst of contacting Activision and Red Octane as we speak. Stay tuned.
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fuck!

Edit 2 (12/13/07):
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165012

Gamers want cross compatibility in their guitar games. Even Red Octane says complete compatibility is inevitable, if the consumer demanded it. Consumers did demand it for Rock Band on PlayStation 3, prompting Harmonix to develop a patch that would enable support for Guitar Hero III's Les Paul controllers. The patch went through the submission process, but never made it out the door; Activision objected to its release and Sony Computer Entertainment America complied.

Our requests for comment from Red Octane and Activision have gone unanswered. But, where does Sony stand in all this? So far, the company isn't taking sides. "This is a matter that needs to be resolved between Harmonix/MTV and Activision regarding Intellectual Property," said a SCEA spokesperson to 1UP. "At SCEA, we of course want this resolved and to ensure the best possible gaming experience. We encourage MTV, Harmonix and Activision to discuss this among themselves so there can be an amicable resolution in the best interest of the consumer."


Sadly, that doesn't really provide us with any answers. Harmonix and MTV are hoping the court of public opinion will force Activision and Red Octane to give the go-ahead. We're hard pressed to find a decent reason for them to be holding objection; the patch would increase sales for Guitar Hero. At the same time, blocking it means there is no way for gamers to pick up the game-only Rock Band SKU on PS3 and do anything but karaoke; individual Rock Band instruments aren't arriving until sometime in early 2008.

From a corporate perspective, maybe this makes sense. Then again, that doesn't make it right.
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Sony speaks out on the situation.

Edit 3 (9/7/08):
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77842

This may be an old thread and all, but I think it's worth it just for this bit of news:

A PS3 patch will be coming out this Thursday, September 11th, which will allow RB1 song export, in addition to updating DLC to our RB2 standards (so you can continue to rock the newer content in RB1 if you so choose!) This title update will also patch for the use of the Guitar Hero III Les Paul PS3 Controller with RB1 on the PS3. We're excited to release this, as controller compatibility is something we've been working towards for a long time.
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Looks like Sony's finally stepped up with their pledge for better instrument compatibility on the PS3.
 
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Apparently they really have it out for eachother. Activision's lawyers wont even let their employees say "Guitar Hero" in interviews for fear of lawsuit.
 
[quote name='Bezerker']Apparently they really have it out for eachother. Activision's lawyers wont even let their employees say "Guitar Hero" in interviews for fear of lawsuit.[/quote]

You mean "Rock Band" right?
 
[quote name='PenguinMaster']How is Activision even able to block a patch for a game they didn't have any involvement in?[/quote]The patch adds compatibility for Activision's guitar control for use with Rock Band. Activision doesn't want its "proprietary" guitar controller to work with the competition's game.
 
Wouldn't Activision actually make more money by Harmonix implementing this? If this patch does what it's rumored to do, I would buy GHIII to have an extra guitar, and I know lots of other people that would do the same.
 
[quote name='lanzarlaluna']Wouldn't Activision actually make more money by Harmonix implementing this? If this patch does what it's rumored to do, I would buy GHIII to have an extra guitar, and I know lots of other people that would do the same.[/QUOTE]

Seriously. I can see them not wanting people to use other accessories on their own games (because that means people will need to buy more of their accessories) but allowing their accessories to be used on other games ups the demand for their accessories.
 
[quote name='lanzarlaluna']Wouldn't Activision actually make more money by Harmonix implementing this? If this patch does what it's rumored to do, I would buy GHIII to have an extra guitar, and I know lots of other people that would do the same.[/QUOTE]
Seriously. Either the rumor is false or Activision is very, very stupid.
 
[quote name='pete5883']Seriously. Either the rumor is false or Activision is very, very stupid.[/quote]

Which is entirely possible. Either way, I can't see how Activision can block this, is there any legal precedent or law that would justify their claim?
 
[quote name='H.Cornerstone']Which is entirely possible. Either way, I can't see how Activision can block this, is there any legal precedent or law that would justify their claim?[/quote]
Eh probably not.
 
I'm looking to see how this'll pan out. If I were SCEA, I'd tell Activision to suck my ass. Think of the software-only RB sales they're missing out on b/c there are no fucking controllers to work with the fucking thing.

I, for one, went ahead and picked it up for the 360 b/c I could use my X-plorer with it, while I've tried to be the person who would only buy exclusive titles for the 360, given its persnitcketyness and likelihood of spontaneous death.

So, with far more people (surely) buying RB for the 360, it even further solidifies the 360 as this gen's console to buy multiplatform titles on. That's not what Sony needs right now - they need a reason to get people to buy the fuckin' game.
 
[quote name='evanft']It's a rumor, and it's Destructoid.[/quote]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164953
Remember that rumor from Destructoid suggesting Activision was preventing the release of a Rock Band patch to enable compatibility with Guitar Hero III's Les Paul peripheral? Most people laughed it off (including us), but Harmonix has issued a statement to 1UP announcing that it's actually...true. A patch enabling support for the Les Paul on PS3 was submitted (and approved) to Sony, but Activision is holding its release.

"As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox 360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band," says Harmonix. "We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so."

"We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others in the industry will also adopt this philosophy," concludes the statement.

1UP is in the midst of contacting Activision and Red Octane as we speak. Stay tuned.
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fuck!
 
wow thats pretty lame. definitely a stupid decision on their part. i guess theyre a bit cocky rolling in their mountains of cash from gh3 and cod4. maybe the update will be leaked somehow
 
Well, doesn't this mean that 1up's rumor of Activision making a patch to block GH3 guitar support from Rock Band on 360 a bit more believable?
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Well, doesn't this mean that 1up's rumor of Activision making a patch to block GH3 guitar support from Rock Band on 360 a bit more believable?[/QUOTE]

Because that's really possible, right? Activision can release a patch for ANOTHER COMPANY'S GAME.

Fail.
 
fuck TEH ACTIVISION!!!!
MeanShiek.jpg
 
I don't see why anyone is so suprised. This was Red Octane's stance since Guitar Hero 1 by making them incompatible with Guitar Freaks.

That's why they're a pathetic company.
 
So if its a rumor thats been confirmed..

Doesnt it make it true then?

Wonder why Rockband has bombed in sales.. like it takes a genius to figure it out.. what a commercial disappointment the game was :(
 
[quote name='Ice2Dragon']So if its a rumor thats been confirmed..

Doesnt it make it true then?

Wonder why Rockband has bombed in sales.. like it takes a genius to figure it out.. what a commercial disappointment the game was :([/QUOTE]

Uh, from all the articles I've read, no real sales #'s have been released yet. Just because they haven't emptied all of the stock doesn't mean it's a bomb. In fact in some regions they are sold out. I was able to sell my extra 360 rockbands for $130 more markup
 
[quote name='Zoglog']Uh, from all the articles I've read, no real sales #'s have been released yet. Just because they haven't emptied all of the stock doesn't mean it's a bomb. In fact in some regions they are sold out. I was able to sell my extra 360 rockbands for $130 more markup[/quote]

Vgchartz has it banked at around 200,000 for both ps3/360 combined from what I read.. its not even top 10 on either chart..
 
The problem is that most people don't want to pay $170 for one game, regardless of what equipment is bundled with it. It's still only one game at the end of the day. I know I personally don't want the much fake music hardware in my small gaming room, I think it's getting a little overboard now.
 
200,000 units sold at $170 is not a bomb assuming VG charts is even accurate.....

[quote name='Ice2Dragon']So if its a rumor thats been confirmed..
[/QUOTE]

either way that part still stands. Not surprising considering Destructoid is about as reliable as Fox News. Destructoid is the special breed that manages somehow to be even less credible than the sensationalist blogs like Kotaku or Joystiq.
 
Two things.
#1) As has been said, fuck those dumb bastards at Activision who don't seem to understand that this can only make them more money (I would go out and buy GH3 for PS3 tomorrow if this patch was released).
#2) If Rockband is actually a flop, it's the best damn flop I've ever played.
 
i freakin' love RockBand. I hated the Stratocaster and sold it, but luckily I have the 360 version and am thoroughly enjoying using my Xplorer on it.
 
[quote name='Zoglog']Uh, from all the articles I've read, no real sales #'s have been released yet. Just because they haven't emptied all of the stock doesn't mean it's a bomb. In fact in some regions they are sold out. I was able to sell my extra 360 rockbands for $130 more markup[/quote]

Are you kidding me? I saw maybe three people buy Rock Band on BF, while I can't find GH3 anywhere and Gh2 is now selling out in its place. Let's not forget that the guitar for Rock Band sucks balls. Donkey balls. My friend bought Rock Band and the guitar broke within five days of purchase. It's probably the only time I'm happy somebody I know bought into those service plans. The cashier kept telling us how a ton of the Rock Bands were being exchanged since the Whammy bars, buttons, etc. were just breaking on them. If I've gone into a store that sells Rock Band, then i tell people to just not buy it.

[quote name='getmyrunon']Two things.
#1) As has been said, fuck those dumb bastards at Activision who don't seem to understand that this can only make them more money (I would go out and buy GH3 for PS3 tomorrow if this patch was released).
#2) If Rockband is actually a flop, it's the best damn flop I've ever played.[/quote]

1. I agree, but I can see Activision's rational in this one. Still, they'd probably make more money buy selling their guitar/game for Rock Band, since EA can't put out a quality device/product since the guitar sucks and I didn't care much for the game when you compare it to GH.

2. I've played plenty of flops (Beyond Good and Evil comes to mind), and this is hardly the best flop I've played. Oh and Ico....
 
[quote name='hiccupleftovers']Are you kidding me? I saw maybe three people buy Rock Band on BF, while I can't find GH3 anywhere and Gh2 is now selling out in its place. Let's not forget that the guitar for Rock Band sucks balls. Donkey balls. My friend bought Rock Band and the guitar broke within five days of purchase. It's probably the only time I'm happy somebody I know bought into those service plans. The cashier kept telling us how a ton of the Rock Bands were being exchanged since the Whammy bars, buttons, etc. were just breaking on them. If I've gone into a store that sells Rock Band, then i tell people to just not buy it. [/quote]
Anecdotes =/= fact. When I got my copy of Rock Band during BF weekend, pretty much everyone was sold out of RB bundles. I luckily found the last bundle that Fry's had and bought that.

My guitar's working just fine and I prefer the look and feel of it to the GH guitars.
 
Ahhh... My target was sold out of Rock Band for about the first three weeks after it came out. We just got some 360 one's in today.

And I hate activision now. They can go to hell.

And if I were sony and I would say screw acitivision and release it anyways. What's activision going to do? Release even crappier ports of their games?
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']Anecdotes =/= fact. When I got my copy of Rock Band during BF weekend, pretty much everyone was sold out of RB bundles. I luckily found the last bundle that Fry's had and bought that.

My guitar's working just fine and I prefer the look and feel of it to the GH guitars.[/quote]

I never said what I experienced was fact, but I've noticed the trend throughout my city. I don't know if my city is indicative of a national trend, but usually we seem to match up. Perhaps in certain areas Rock Band is selling out, but as I said, in my area it hardly has made a dent. This also doesn't take away from the fact that I know a lot of people who are also disappointed in the guitar/game. I actually met my buddy today at BB from awhile back while I was trying to find a decent copy of the new Futurama movie without paint (long story and will be in the Futurama thread) and we started talking about just this sort of thing and the guitar (end of speed run on sentence).
 
Yeah how funny is this. The patch is there, Sony's approved but Activision is holding Sony up for all they can. If they have no legal reprocussions Sony should just allow the patch through (they've already approved it).


Sorry Activision but you are all talk (in what they'd probably say they'd do if Sony releases it if they can't take any legal action against Sony), they'd never pull their releases from the PS3 (especially big one's), they'd lose to much profit.


+1 for the GH3 Wii version class action suit, Activision is such a shitty company, all they do for the most part is pubilsh sequels that are the same thing 900 times over (some which are horrible, like Spider-Man)
 
[quote name='SuppaMan']Sorry Activision but you are all talk (in what they'd probably say they'd do if Sony releases it if they can't take any legal action against Sony), they'd never pull their releases from the PS3 (especially big one's), they'd lose to much profit.


+1 for the GH3 Wii version class action suit, Activision is such a shitty company, all they do for the most part is pubilsh sequels that are the same thing 900 times over (some which are horrible, like Spider-Man)[/quote]

Don't start talking bullshit. Spider-Man 2 was great. So was both of the Xmen Legends and the Call of Duties. They put out plenty of solid and excellent games. Activision should have changed the name of Call of Duty 4 or dropped the 4 altogether and you wouldn't be able to complain, whine, and say that it was a sequel.
 
Um Activision purchased Infinity Ward into a subsidiary, and only the first, second, and fourth were any good. I like the games, but they haven't changed much. Still mostly the same thing (save for the online system in COD4).


SP2 sucked. I still can't believe I bought that retail. After the gimmick of web-swinging around a big city on the last-gen consoles wore off, it started to set in as a barely average game if not worse.


Lastly I don't care if you don't like what I said, don't be a cock, I am correct in what I said (they basically get their studios to develop 900 billion sequels that aren't really any different, and that also a large portion of the games they publish suck).
 
Red Octane sure likes taking jabs at Harmonix on their crappy guitars.

I don't think we're too interested in having their guitars work on our game, because they're having a lot of issues with their guitars. From our standpoint, to be quite honest, if you know a competitor's product has issues, there's not a whole lot of motivation to make these problematic controllers work with your game. Why would you want to cause yourself the headache?
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http://kotaku.com/gaming/rock-band/red-octane-talking-trash-over-rock-band-guitars-331082.php

It's a dick thing to do, and would do nothing but boost sells of GHIII, but this issue was bound to happen with their attitude toward the competition.
 
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165012

Gamers want cross compatibility in their guitar games. Even Red Octane says complete compatibility is inevitable, if the consumer demanded it. Consumers did demand it for Rock Band on PlayStation 3, prompting Harmonix to develop a patch that would enable support for Guitar Hero III's Les Paul controllers. The patch went through the submission process, but never made it out the door; Activision objected to its release and Sony Computer Entertainment America complied.

Our requests for comment from Red Octane and Activision have gone unanswered. But, where does Sony stand in all this? So far, the company isn't taking sides. "This is a matter that needs to be resolved between Harmonix/MTV and Activision regarding Intellectual Property," said a SCEA spokesperson to 1UP. "At SCEA, we of course want this resolved and to ensure the best possible gaming experience. We encourage MTV, Harmonix and Activision to discuss this among themselves so there can be an amicable resolution in the best interest of the consumer."


Sadly, that doesn't really provide us with any answers. Harmonix and MTV are hoping the court of public opinion will force Activision and Red Octane to give the go-ahead. We're hard pressed to find a decent reason for them to be holding objection; the patch would increase sales for Guitar Hero. At the same time, blocking it means there is no way for gamers to pick up the game-only Rock Band SKU on PS3 and do anything but karaoke; individual Rock Band instruments aren't arriving until sometime in early 2008.

From a corporate perspective, maybe this makes sense. Then again, that doesn't make it right.
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Sony speaks out on the situation.
 
I personally had bought GHIII when my Rockband guitar broke after playing for three days straight. It didn't work so I returned it and I do not plan on buying again. Too bad Activision, you HAD a sale.
 
[quote name='hiccupleftovers']I never said what I experienced was fact,[/QUOTE]

Maybe not directly, but you're sure treating it AS a definitive fact.

either way, Rockband guitar > Guitar hero's fisher price ukulele

what I find fascinating is how some of you are blaming Activision rather than red octane
 
I have to assume that their stance is basically that, yes, it would increase sales of GH3, but also of RB, but with how well GH is already selling, they'd rather take the hit and screw over the competition.

I mean, that's the thing that everyone is failing to mention here. Sure, it would increase GH sales... but they don't *need* increased. GH3 for Wii and 360 (also see: GH2) are already flying off the shelves on the run up to the holiday. Activision doesn't need help here, and I think that's the point.

They keep selling well until Christmas, and RB sales are less than expected because of only being able to purchase the bundle. It's a dick move, but it's smart. Keeping people from being able to play RB is a good move for the holiday season. Remember, we know about this... Joe Public doesn't. Actually, I don't think Joe Public even understands the difference between of all of these games, but that's beside the point.

Anyway... I'm willing to bet that within a month after Christmas, once sales start flagging, Activision will let the patch through. Then, RB will have already missed the holiday shopping season, and GH gets the boost from people buying extra guitars.

A dick move, for certain, but there's no denying that it's a smart one.
 
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