Rock Band DLC to break Xbox Live Marketplace?

[Siberian]

I'm not sure how many folks have spent much time in the Marketplace interface but honestly managing large amounts of items isn't something it's really good at. It starts to become a pain to use when a title has as many items as say GH2.

Now, look at Rock Band.

We've been promised so far The Who's Next (at least 9 or maybe 16 tracks if they use the 1995 remastered edition), 18 tracks from the Grateful Dead, likely Nirvana's Nevermind if the rumors turn out to be true (13 more tracks) plus today we get news of another 27 tracks & packs.

So, your looking at for DLC items:

2 CDs.
6+ Song Packs
67 Individual Songs

All totaled that's over 75 download content items. Can you imagine trying to sort through that list using the current Xbox Live Marketplace interface? Just trying to avoid buying duplicates and finding the songs you want is going to be a nightmare. And lets say this is the content for the first 4 months of release. A year from now what will there be? At this rate a list of over 300 items.... Plus if they start offering 'preview' videos like Guitar Hero does for it's content this will rapidly balloon up to hundreds of items even more quickly.

It'll quickly become impossible to easily navigate. Hopefully they'll have a better interface then the standard marketplace blade to buy things in because if not this will be a real headache to use.

[AdamBomb629]

There will probably be some kind of in-game interface (you buy the songs in-game) and when you click on the song you want, the XBOX guide pops on the screen.

[rockst01]

It'll be easy to avoid buying duplicates because stuff you already downloaded has a checkmark next to it

[Siberian]

It'll be easy to avoid buying duplicates because stuff you already downloaded has a checkmark next to it

No because think about it, using the current Xbox live interface content will be duplicated.

Take for instance the Black Sabbath Pack you'll have:


The pack of all 3 songs - War Pigs, N.I.B., Sweet Leaf
War Pigs (Only)
Sweet Leaf (Only)
N.I.B. (Only)


So, you could I would think buy the Pack AND then accidentally by just N.I.B. since they'd be two separate items.

[scarecrow521]

Yeah, I'm sure there'll be some sort of in-game interface to do this.

[McDeezy]

There will probably be some kind of in-game interface (you buy the songs in-game) and when you click on the song you want, the XBOX guide pops on the screen.

Very very good prediction. Never thought of that. Until now ;)

[milesodanglers]

There will probably be some kind of in-game interface (you buy the songs in-game) and when you click on the song you want, the XBOX guide pops on the screen.

yeah i was hoping that they would have some in game interface, kinda like halo 2 had for viewing your friends list. i was hoping something like you go to the store in the game, and then go to downloads and a list of songs would come up.

[hankmallon]

I understand your concern entirely, but I'm pretty sure they'd have direct links to items in game. Similar to advertisements on the Xbox Dashboard for example; they say "buy this pack now" and when you click it the only thing on the list you're taken to is that pack instead of every item ever released or any recent item for that game. I'm pretty sure it'll be the same type of linking in game.

[Rock_Starman]

Why imagine it when you can try it now? Idolm@aster has 141 pieces of DLC (in Japan,there's only like 2 things here) and Rumble Roses XX has 104.

[logicalnoise]

No because think about it, using the current Xbox live interface content will be duplicated.

Take for instance the Black Sabbath Pack you'll have:


The pack of all 3 songs - War Pigs, N.I.B., Sweet Leaf
War Pigs (Only)
Sweet Leaf (Only)
N.I.B. (Only)


So, you could I would think buy the Pack AND then accidentally by just N.I.B. since they'd be two separate items.

nope if you buy the pack the individual songs get a check mark too. Forza and PGR have similar deals. But yeah HMX talked about a special in game frontend to help differentiate the titles even better.

[seafisch]

Question about the DLC:

I'm assuming that most, if not all, of the DLC will be the original masters. If that is the case, will we be able to play them outside of the game, as we do with songs saved to the HD? For me, I would be more willing to pay for DLC if I could set up a playlist for other games or just to listen to if I'm working at the computer.

Has anything been said about this in any of the developer interviews or press releases?

[hankmallon]

I think I remember reading something that there's a thing you can buy to get both the playable and the stand alone versions. Someone will have to confirm this, though.

[lowlyspartan789]

I highly doubt you'll be able to do that seafisch. It probably has to do with licensing issues and DRM. I've never heard it specifically talked about though.