When will Rock Band 3 be Exportable?

[dominicrosales23]

But let's face facts. Rock Band 3 didn't sell anywhere near what was hoped it would. The fan base has dwindled to probably less than 20,000 at this point. It costs a LOT to manufacture the plastic instruments, and retailers have been burned once by the big kits cluttering up their stores when the bottom fell out of the genre. So getting them to stock the big band kits again is going to be a huge hurdle to overcome.

True, but with Rock Band Blitz, they didn't have to make any new instruments or what not, and again, if they made another Track Pack that was worth buying, it could also throw them back into the huge game. And there's still tons and tons of RB fans out there, a lot left because of what RB3 had to offer - real instruments. It wasn't until about two months ago that I got the wire to hook up my keyboard to the game, and I love it, but I'm left handed, and the guitars that they released for the game are NOT left handed guitars at all. Still, I love the game, and would love a new Rock Band, if not for a new experience, at least for another killer setlist.

[samjjones]

"Rock Band" isn't Rock Band without the instrument peripherals.

I haven't seen any good solutions proposed here for how to make instrument peripheral sales a viable money making business in today's market. HMX was smart to get out of that business when they did. If HMX had produced peripherals for RB3, it's possible that GH wouldn't be the only one sitting it out at this point in time.

Until that gets resolved, don't expect to see any movement on a new retail/disk title. The market has already said that they don't want to be spending big money on plastic peripherals again.

What HMX has now is a pretty huge library of songs/content to deal with, and they have to figure out how to build games/apps to leverage that content. Blitz was just the first crack at that.

Personally, I think HMX and GH need to partner up, and develop a title which can draw on both libraries in an interesting way, and by teaming up, they'll help mitigate the risk involved. The "Guitar Hero" name is a powerful one, and is better positioned to capture mainstream gamer attention than "Rock Band" is, IMO.

[samjjones]

I doubt we'll get RB4 but I've said it years ago and I'll say it again: make it real instruments only. The tracklist would just be the old RB tracklists but with real instruments. Keep the visuals essentially the same. The guitar/bass would be like Rocksmith, the drums basically pro drums but with hit-hat/multiple crash/flam/double kick/etc toggles, keys would be pro two-handed, vocals stay the same or also register between octaves. Decrease legacy DLC production, increase convertion of all legacy DLC, ideally chronologically. Get the game sold in music stores as a gamefied teacher to learn 150-4k songs on a real instrument. Include a trainer mode that increasingly hides notes as the person continues to play well to ensure better memorization and a lowered reliance on the visual notechart. For real musicians throw in a tools option to record and play your own music locally and integrate with RBN to release the songs just by playing them ingame.

Maybe switch to a subscription model that requires you to be online to play. Pay $x/month for access to the entire library, licensed by paying the artist $y every time Z song is played.

Not going to happen, I know. It would be amazing though.

Pro instument usage is such a tiny percentage of overall Rock Band (the main title) usage, that it's amazing that they continue to support pro players at all. Pro does not seem like a money generating business at this point in time. At all. The hardware vendors like Fender would appear to agree.

When you're in a niche market, you gotta focus on doing what you do best. In this case, it's the ability to get mainstream gamers interested in rhthym games. Whether that's using a plastic guitar to mimic the feeling of playing a real instrument, or banging the A and B buttons in time with the music across multiple highways...that's what HMX does best. And now that they have a massive library that they've spent years building up (and building a crazy innovative user-upload system in RBN, to boot)...building apps on top of THAT is the way to go.

Content is everything.

[SvenBro]

I guess I didn't explain myself quite as clearly as I wanted.

Pro instument usage is such a tiny percentage of overall Rock Band (the main title) usage, that it's amazing that they continue to support pro players at all. Pro does not seem like a money generating business at this point in time. At all. The hardware vendors like Fender would appear to agree.

Do you know one big reason pro usage is tiny? No one ******* knows about it. I've played GH/RB constantly since GH1 and have always enjoyed gauging the average person's knowledge about the different series'. Yes, this is anecdotal but I guarantee it's a good sampling over the past four years of RB alone. I know a lot of people who own one or two of the RB games and only the people I've told know that I can use my Yamaha DTXpress IV to play RB3. Except super fans, very few know about the Mustang and Squier; it doesn't really matter since they're both complete garbage anyways and are the wrong approach to playing "for real". Fender agrees with you because they had to make an overpriced POS peripheral that didn't sell. Would they agree the same if their regular guitar sales jumped from a $60 teacher that got rave reviews from music teachers and marketing in music stores to go along with Billy's Christmas gift? Look at it as more an interactive tab book and less a casual party game.

My intent is to not make any new instruments at all. Just do what Rocksmith does and allow the player to use whatever they have lying around or as an incentive to buy, which is why it should be primarily sold in music stores. Game retailers will never again agree to carry the overpriced (not in actual production cost but in relative value for the average person's usage) plastic bundles. The people who want to play a fun plastic game can play RB3/Blitz and the 4k songs they already have. Music rhythm is now a super small niche market as you've said; you may as well do something grande with it and truly teach people.

Whether that's using a plastic guitar to mimic the feeling of playing a real instrument, or banging the A and B buttons in time with the music across multiple highways...that's what HMX does best.

HMX is also damn good at letting me play very, very close to real drums with my e-kit. I use two crashes and rides plus a double-kick. Why would they want to stop at plastic instruments? Why just "mimic" when they can definitely do the same quality highway charting for real?

And now that they have a massive library that they've spent years building up (and building a crazy innovative user-upload system in RBN, to boot)...building apps on top of THAT is the way to go.

Content is everything.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm proposing but as several apps on one disc to enhance the basic game. Include a trainer app to hide notes to decrease reliance on a visual notechart. Use a tools app to record and replay music locally. Use an enhanced RBN app to upload songs to be play tested and copyright checked. Imagine how much faster music could proliferate if bands could play-test other bands' music for them. And HMX would convert all legacy DLC to real instruments, to build upon the "content is everything" library they already created.

I've spent thousands on discs, bundles, and DLC; I continue to buy DLC entirely because I can play it on my e-kit. I feel a lot more people would do the same if they knew they could use the instruments they already own. I will never buy plastic instruments again and I doubt I'm alone in that.

[fuzzy510]

Where's the sense in making a whole new game strictly as a teacher when the options are available in Rock Band 3? Further, Rocksmith already hit the market as a teaching-first guitar game, and the sales were tepid at best - worse than Rock Band 3, which had to contend with another Guitar Hero title at the same time as well.

There wasn't enough market for two plastic instrument games, and the market for a real-instrument game was been shown to be even smaller. Why would Harmonix go for a piece of a smaller pie?

[SvenBro]

Where's the sense in making a whole new game strictly as a teacher when the options are available in Rock Band 3? Further, Rocksmith already hit the market as a teaching-first guitar game, and the sales were tepid at best - worse than Rock Band 3, which had to contend with another Guitar Hero title at the same time as well.

There wasn't enough market for two plastic instrument games, and the market for a real-instrument game was been shown to be even smaller. Why would Harmonix go for a piece of a smaller pie?

Again, real instruments are not really in RB3. The Mustang is just buttons and the Squier was rare, expensive, and a relatively unknown factor. People don't know you can use it and couldn't find it even if they wanted. I have a friend who has got a music degree playing piano, was trained to sing opera, and is currently a piano teacher. She used my girlfriend's Yamaha Piaggero to play pro keys and said it was nothing like playing for real; the keytar is nothing more than a fun toy. A real-instrument-only game's marketing would focus on these differences; everyone would know you can't use plastic instruments or need to buy expensive proprietary ones.

Rocksmith is still releasing DLC and recently patched it to allow bass; sure the disc sales weren't huge but this would have the RB branding and library, plus HMX's trademark quality. DLC would still be the focus, the disc is just the mechanism to get it to players.

Like I said before, I don't ever expect anything like this to happen. I just think it would be the best evolution of the series, which has clearly trended towards as real as possible as the years progressed.

[samjjones]

Again, real instruments are not really in RB3. The Mustang is just buttons and the Squier was rare, expensive, and a relatively unknown factor. People don't know you can use it and couldn't find it even if they wanted. I have a friend who has got a music degree playing piano, was trained to sing opera, and is currently a piano teacher. She used my girlfriend's Yamaha Piaggero to play pro keys and said it was nothing like playing for real; the keytar is nothing more than a fun toy. A real-instrument-only game's marketing would focus on these differences; everyone would know you can't use plastic instruments or need to buy expensive proprietary ones.

Rocksmith is still releasing DLC and recently patched it to allow bass; sure the disc sales weren't huge but this would have the RB branding and library, plus HMX's trademark quality. DLC would still be the focus, the disc is just the mechanism to get it to players.

Like I said before, I don't ever expect anything like this to happen. I just think it would be the best evolution of the series, which has clearly trended towards as real as possible as the years progressed.

I respect the time you put into providing answers and justification to your position, but I just don't see how expansion into a super niche market is financially attractive for them at this point in time. If you're saying that HMX should figure out how to mimic the Rocksmith model which allows *most* off-the-shelf guitars to work, well, that's a different point, and one that I could be convinced of. They chose to go the way they did because they wanted the specific finger placement feedback to be part of their flow; that was a design decision.

Taking Rock Band out of online or retail stores and into Guitar Center or Sam Ash isn't going to put money in HMX shareholders' pockets. They already catered to the LCD...why try to upsell when they've given away their product for $20 to a big audience already?

[SvenBro]

If you're saying that HMX should figure out how to mimic the Rocksmith model which allows *most* off-the-shelf guitars to work, well, that's a different point, and one that I could be convinced of. They chose to go the way they did because they wanted the specific finger placement feedback to be part of their flow; that was a design decision.

That is exactly the direction I would want them to go. I'm not really faulting HMX for the way they went; I doubt they knew Rocksmith was going to do exactly what it did and not compensated for it, like providing the Squier for specific finger placement but still allowing off-the-shelf guitars without it. It's definitely a shame they went the wrong way but that's it.

Taking Rock Band out of online or retail stores and into Guitar Center or Sam Ash isn't going to put money in HMX shareholders' pockets. They already catered to the LCD...why try to upsell when they've given away their product for $20 to a big audience already?

I didn't mean take it out of regular retail entirely, it would just be a disc in the wall of games alongside CoD and Madden instead of bundles occupying valuable shelf space. I would think their marketing would have to switch entirely, with more music teachers brought in to review the game for bullet-points on the posters at Guitar Center and the like. Maybe get some renowned musicians to make their own midi trainers or something. As for the shareholders, well, at least now it's the HMX shareholders they have to satisfy since they own themselves. No more Viacom, EA or Mad Catz to deal with; who better to convince the HMX shareholders than the guys at HMX themselves?

[DeferredGalaxy3]

That is exactly the direction I would want them to go. I'm not really faulting HMX for the way they went; I doubt they knew Rocksmith was going to do exactly what it did and not compensated for it, like providing the Squier for specific finger placement but still allowing off-the-shelf guitars without it. It's definitely a shame they went the wrong way but that's it.


I didn't mean take it out of regular retail entirely, it would just be a disc in the wall of games alongside CoD and Madden instead of bundles occupying valuable shelf space. I would think their marketing would have to switch entirely, with more music teachers brought in to review the game for bullet-points on the posters at Guitar Center and the like. Maybe get some renowned musicians to make their own midi trainers or something. As for the shareholders, well, at least now it's the HMX shareholders they have to satisfy since they own themselves. No more Viacom, EA or Mad Catz to deal with; who better to convince the HMX shareholders than the guys at HMX themselves?

What ever happened to Rock band being fun and not a music school?

[SirDavidTLynch]

If you're going to take away everything that 95% of the audience likes about Rock Band, and alter the game so drastically as to make the entire catalog incompatible, why call it Rock Band?