PS3 Music Peripheral Compatibility Update

[Stranger Danger]

UPDATE
Rock Band PS3 Gets GH3 Guitar Support Thursday, Disc Export Feature and Fixed PAX Pack

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54615

This Thursday, the PlayStation 3 edition of Harmonix's Rock Band will at long last be compatible with the guitar that accompanied Neversoft's Guitar Hero 3 on PS3.

Harmonix initially tried to release the patch back in December, but was blocked by Guitar Hero owner Activision. Activision later claimed that it should be "compensated for the use of our technology," though the Xbox 360 edition of Rock Band was already compatible with the system's Guitar Hero instruments.

That stance changed earlier this year, as Harmonix, Activision and publisher Konami all promised that this fall's trio of music games--Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Revolution--would all function with each others' guitars, drums and microphones.

In addition to guitar compatibility, the September 11 patch for Rock Band PS3 will add the disc export feature, which allows most of the game's songs to be played in the forthcoming Rock Band 2 for $5, and a fix for the only-broken-on-PS3 PAX Pack.

A fixed version of the PAX DLC should be up in the PlayStation Store before Thursday and will be free for those who already purchased it, community manager Sean Baptiste wrote on the game's official board, but the patch will rectify the issue for the lazy.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/...bility-update/
Good news for PS3 owners. Better late than never!

Hi everybody, Michael Shorrock, here. I’m the Director of Publisher Relations here at SCEA. I work closely with all of the publishers and developers who create games for all PlayStation platforms. While SCEA had a ton of great announcements at E3, I’m excited to say, we have one more for today, one that I know a lot of you have been asking about:

For the past several months, we have been working closely with Neversoft and Activision, Harmonix and Konami to ensure that PlayStation 3 guitars and drum sets will all feature a basic level of gameplay compatibility.

For the most part, this means that the titles with musical peripherals will work with the other’s software. A few specific examples include: Guitar Hero: World Tour’s guitars and drums will work with Rock Band 2 and Konami’s Rock Revolution software.

And yes, you guessed it, Rock Band 2’s guitar and drum set will work with Guitar Hero: World Tour and with Rock Revolution.

Conversely, Rock Revolution’s drum set will work with both Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2.

In addition, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 will both support the SingStar microphones.

We’re still working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market, and we hope to have an announcement on that shortly.

Of course each of these great games have their own specific cool features that may not be compatible with the other controllers, but this is our first big step in bringing a level of compatibility to music games that is sure to benefit PlayStation 3 consumers.

Keep an eye out here for more information in the future.

[Shoeless]

I was extremely relieved when I heard that news. It's definitely good for the fans, and helps to take some of the tarnish Activision had previously garnered as being the defacto "bad guys" in this scenario for blocking the compatibility patch between RB1 and GH3. It might even Guitar Hero: World Tour a possible purchase for me now that I know I won't have to get a whole new of peripherals just to play the damn thing.

Well, that and the guilty pleasure of being able to wail on the guitar for "Beat It."

I'm a child of the 80's. Sue me.

[Snadinator]

Ya I posted this in the game room as well.

Fuck yeah. I've felt like the looser who bought Rockband on the PS3 for a long time now.

[Stranger Danger]

I have Rockband and GH3 and I was considering one the the third party guitars that cover both so when I have friends over I can go 4 player RB or battle in GH3. My living room was beginning to look like a collection of plastic ukuleles!

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Snadinator

Ya I posted this in the game room as well.

Fuck yeah. I've felt like the looser who bought Rockband on the PS3 for a long time now.

The lack of voice chat and the "Players Met" function still not working on the PS3 is really annoying though. It's a foregone conclusion they won't fix it now with RB2 inbound, but even having in-game chat doesn't work as well as it should if you're trying to type out "For the love of God, this will be the 5th time I've played Enter Sandman, no more please!"

And the guy online has already selected it before you could get past "For," in your message.

The disabled "Players Met" function is still totally puzzling to me. It makes it pretty tedious when you find a decent player you want to add to your friends list and you're scrambling to find paper to write the name down on, or else hope that you can remember "SuperGamerz137684" to send an add friend request.

With any luck those problems will be addressed in Rock Band 2.

[michealo]

i'm actually surprised SCEA was able to organize this, especially if they can pull off backwards compatibility like mentioned.

was going to ignore both RB2 and GHWT because of this but will now seriously considering purchasing the one with better quality instruments to play on both.

it's a smart move beacuse even if i buy RB2, GHWT can now get 60$ out of me instead of nothing.

[Snadinator]

Originally Posted by michealo

i'm actually surprised SCEA was able to organize this, especially if they can pull off backwards compatibility like mentioned.

was going to ignore both RB2 and GHWT because of this but will now seriously considering purchasing the one with better quality instruments to play on both.
it's a smart move beacuse even if i buy RB2, GHWT can now get 60$ out of me instead of nothing.

You know what's going to happen. One will have the better guitar, the other the better drum set.

[Snadinator]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

The lack of voice chat and the "Players Met" function still not working on the PS3 is really annoying though. It's a foregone conclusion they won't fix it now with RB2 inbound, but even having in-game chat doesn't work as well as it should if you're trying to type out "For the love of God, this will be the 5th time I've played Enter Sandman, no more please!"

And the guy online has already selected it before you could get past "For," in your message.

The disabled "Players Met" function is still totally puzzling to me. It makes it pretty tedious when you find a decent player you want to add to your friends list and you're scrambling to find paper to write the name down on, or else hope that you can remember "SuperGamerz137684" to send an add friend request.

With any luck those problems will be addressed in Rock Band 2.

It better be or I am trading all this shit in and getting the 360 version.

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Snadinator

You know what's going to happen. One will have the better guitar, the other the better drum set.

We'll see how it goes. The new Strats for RB2 are supposed to fix the issues people had with the earlier Strat model. I'm seriously considering getting one of those new guitars, because I generally prefer playing the Strat, but it can get a bit twitchy sometimes with kicking in Overdrive. I'm not totally sold on the new touch sensitive slider bar GH4 is going to be introducing. I'm going to want some actual hands on time with that before I see, but I detest the clicky strum bar of GH guitars.

The drums... I doubt anything is going to really trump that deluxe Ion kit Harmonix is offering for RB2.

[juventuz]

My wife got my Rock Band for the PS3 for Christmas because the 360 versions were all sold out, I had contemplated selling my RB on the PS3 and picking it up for the 360 and I was going to get GH: WT for the 360 as well. With this announcement I'll just spend the $60 on GH: WT for the PS3 and keep Rock Band for the PS3.

Good for Sony, this keeps me using their products.

[maley]

Originally Posted by Snadinator

You know what's going to happen. One will have the better guitar, the other the better drum set.

A double team of hitmen from Harmoix/Activison will be calling at your house shortly to silence the crazy crack pot conspiracy theorist.

[Dark Lord Greg]

We’re still working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market, and we hope to have an announcement on that shortly.

so there will be a patch to use GH3 guitar for RB on PS3?

[MrE]

this is great news! Hopefully GHWT will work with RB equipment on the 360. That will be the only way I will buy GHWT.

[Stranger Danger]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Greg

so there will be a patch to use GH3 guitar for RB on PS3?

Looks that way

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Greg

so there will be a patch to use GH3 guitar for RB on PS3?

That patch already exists. Harmonix made it way back when Rock Band first launched. They created it, tested it, submitted it to Sony... And then Activision caught wind of the move and took legal steps with Sony to stop the patch from hitting their network. That's one of the reasons why Activision took the defacto bad guy role I mentioned in an earlier post. Harmonix has been all for this from the very beginning, but Activision were being too aggressive in their protection of their IP, so all it would take is Activision finally relenting on their previous stance for Sony to say "Okay, great, we can finally put up that patch we've been sitting on for 9 months."