Let's ask Sony to allow more songs per week on PS3

[bigmf]

A good first step to take would be to determine if Sony is the one limiting RBN to 5 a week.

[TubaDude49]

What if Harmonix start stepping up their DLC again, making it impossible for Sony to handle RBN songs on top of HMX-authored songs and other games?

If the limit gets increased to 10 songs, people are going to complain that that's not enough.

Perhaps they set up a system where they have 10-15 song slots a week, and on the dry HMX weeks we have more RBN songs, and on heavy weeks we have less. Even if it meant some weeks with less than 5, it'd be more in the long run.

A good first step to take would be to determine if Sony is the one limiting RBN to 5 a week.

Yes and no. They set up the cap, but HMX likely wouldn't spend time QAing everything if there wasn't one

[hmxhenry]

From what I remember HMX saying, its not entirely Sony's fault. HMX has to convert each track to Sony's standards and submit them to Sony for testing. With all those things together it seems that 5 songs a week is a good amount.

If it bothers you so much then your only option seems to be moving to an Xbox.

A good first step to take would be to determine if Sony is the one limiting RBN to 5 a week.

So the real issue here is that Sony doesn't have a UGC tool like Microsoft's XNA suite available to players. On the 360, users upload the content, users test the content and users approve the content to push it live, making RBN a fully realized user generated endeavor. PS3 doesn't have anything like this, so there's no way to open up an unlimited RBN flow as it currently exists on the 360.

As a result, any RBN songs released on PS3 need to be re routed through Harmonix to be released. Users are submitting the content, users are testing the content and users are approving the content, but Harmonix then has to reformat it to fit the PS3's specifications and submit it to Sony to publish. This last step requires a lot more hands on work from our team and a lot more QA bandwidth from Sony, which requires a good deal of paper work and weeks of submission lead time. We don't have an infinite amount of bandwidth to submit content and Sony doesn't have an infinite amount of bandwidth to test content, which is how the 5 song cap was reached.

It's unlikely that we'd be able to increase our PS3 RBN output anytime soon, and unless Sony was able to implement a similar UGC set up as the 360 (which I would personally love to see) then it's doubtful that they would be able to increase their output as well. Encouraging Sony to adopt a more robust UGC set up for indie devs would certainly be a step in the direction you're looking to go, and is maybe more beneficial than requesting an allowance specifically for content in one game.

[ASPMike]

Opinion from a music gamer;
To be honest, what doesn't help is the division of the community. For the longest time the guitar hero community (le gasp) was the better community because it didn't care and everyone equally got DLC on time. Therefore no fighting, now it's a wasteland of people. But it still has a little bit of a community (Please no stupid flame wars about this)

Here it's If you dont have DLC, "gtfo of my game, you suck". Same can be said if you only have like 100 songs. Which goes in to my next point that the whole console DLC division is probably one of the worst things to happen to this genre.

From a RBN author standpoint i understand Hmx decision to have the cap. Five songs, with normal DLC that's about 8- 20 songs a week depending on the release. Which is quite a few songs when you look at it.

[TubaDude49]

It's unlikely that we'd be able to increase our PS3 RBN output anytime soon, and unless Sony was able to implement a similar UGC set up as the 360 (which I would personally love to see) then it's doubtful that they would be able to increase their output as well. Encouraging Sony to adopt a more robust UGC set up for indie devs would certainly be a step in the direction you're looking to go, and is maybe more beneficial than requesting an allowance specifically for content in one game.

That's what I was thinking. At least things like Move.Me and their indie pub fund was moving towards that, so who knows what we might see in the near future.
Thanks for the clarification Henry.

Five songs, with normal DLC that's about 8- 20 songs a week depending on the release. Which is quite a few songs when you look at it.

Hence the suggestion of an oscillating cap at around 12 or so. (With exceptions for content too large, such as London Calling.

[BachiG]

... This last step requires a lot more hands on work from our team and a lot more QA bandwidth from Sony, which requires a good deal of paper work and weeks of submission lead time. We don't have an infinite amount of bandwidth to submit content....

HA-HA! Take that XBox 360'ers! You too can join in on the blame Sony bandwagon for fewer overall DLC being released as of late...since HMX has to spend more time on porting over our PSN tracks, that's less time for authoring more official DLC tracks. So...take that!

[SirDavidTLynch]

Yes, blame Sony and not increased Dance Central DLC, more parts to author on each track, seeeeecret projects, or the overall decline of plastic instrument games.

[Drilnoth]

Thank you hmxhenry! That cleared some things up for me. I had gathered from a year or so of forum-lurking that it was mostly Sony setting the cap; I didn't realize the amount of work necessary on your end, also.

EDIT: Oh... and I forgot to mention. Thank you Harmonix for not only reading customer questions and comments but to giving in-depth responses to them where possible. I, and the rest of the community, really appreciate it.

[FujiSkunk]

Yes, blame Sony and not increased Dance Central DLC, more parts to author on each track, seeeeecret projects, or the overall decline of plastic instrument games.

I'm pretty sure he was joking.

Pretty sure.

[hmxhenry]

HA-HA! Take that XBox 360'ers! You too can join in on the blame Sony bandwagon for fewer overall DLC being released as of late...since HMX has to spend more time on porting over our PSN tracks, that's less time for authoring more official DLC tracks. So...take that!

That may be the most schadenfreudey schadenfreude I have ever seen.

Thank you hmxhenry! That cleared some things up for me. I had gathered from a year or so of forum-lurking that it was mostly Sony setting the cap; I didn't realize the amount of work necessary on your end, also.

EDIT: Oh... and I forgot to mention. Thank you Harmonix for not only reading customer questions and comments but to giving in-depth responses to them where possible. I, and the rest of the community, really appreciate it.

You're most welcome! I'm here to help.