Rock Band in 2013 and beyond

[gamrrpol]

This reminds me, how about a special edition of Rock Band 3 for the Wii U? Where you can either play with either the instruments, or with the new tablet controller's touch pad. You can use your fingers on there to play drums, or guitar, bass, or key parts. And all the DLC from the Wii days will be compatible.

Uh....I see no chance of this happening. I don't think HMX will invest in any of the new generation of systems. The fanbase for the franchise is so small at this point it would be almost impossible to justify the investment in time / money necessary to create a new iteration.

[gamrrpol]

This.

I know I'm with an authoring group BUT don't think I have any insider knowledge into HMX plans concerning RB.

However looking at the trend of DLC sales (RBN wise) since the launch of RBN to now, sales and player/purchase base is way down. I'd love LOVE for a RB4 to be made. Not only for the game, but for the fact that instruments are getting non existent. As more instruments break, and there's no stock to replace them less people will be able to play even if they wanted to.

There's this terrible catch 22 that's slowly spiraling to the end of the RB franchise. If there isn't enough of a player base to make creating a new instrument focused game (IE Rock Band 4), then financially it doesn't make sense to take the risk of putting out said game. The Catch-22 is without said new game and instruments the user base will continue to dwindle as equipment fails.

I've come to accept that there will be no Rock Band 4, that the series will stay on current gen consoles, and Harmonix will continue to put out DLC until the user base has dwindled to the point where it's no longer financially viable to do so.

MAYBE there's a sudden resurgence in the franchise (but without new instruments for new players to play on I don't see how that can happen), and Harmonix is able to make a RB4 for next gen consoles. Never say never, but realistically I don't see that happening from where we're at right now.

BUT even if Harmonix announces the end of the franchise in the next year it's been a hell of a ride, and they accomplished a feat (continuous weekly DLC for over 5+ years) that I doubt will ever be repeated in the industry.

AND I've still got thousands of tracks to keep playing long after the DLC stops, and even as much as I have there are more than 1000 tracks I don't own.

So even if Rock Band stops today, I've still got plenty of content to keep me busy for years to come...

Now if only my damn instruments hold together :P

I think in three years we'll all be singing just to keep playing for lack of instruments >____>

This, a thousand times. EXACTLY how I see it.

[Meat-Popsicle]

I won't even bother with consoles if RB4 doesn't happen.

I'll probably buy an XBox 360 (finally!) if there's no Rock Band on the new consoles. Then I can play Dance Central, I hear that game is fun. Ideally, I'd also buy an account that already has a boatload of RB DLC on it ... surely that it possible, even if you're not allowed to advertise such transfers on this message board, right?

I would expect new DLC for current consoles to continue until about 2014, regardless. We'll see.

[firedoom666]

well my hope for 2013 is for more Ayreon to be added in Rock Band (to tie in with the new Ayreon album)

[c-murph]

Rock Band 4 with more and better character animations like RB2.

Edit: World Tour and/or Level Select

[Ahielia]

As someone who desperately needs a new guitar, and can't find one in the U.K (liitle point buying a second hand one)

Why's that?
I bought one, works perfectly.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

I'll probably buy an XBox 360 (finally!) if there's no Rock Band on the new consoles. Then I can play Dance Central, I hear that game is fun. Ideally, I'd also buy an account that already has a boatload of RB DLC on it ... surely that it possible, even if you're not allowed to advertise such transfers on this message board, right?

It may be possible, but that's way more than just frowned on. That is seriously illegal as ****.

[Meat-Popsicle]

It may be possible, but that's way more than just frowned on. That is seriously illegal as ****.

Wow, really? I am, by nature, really obnoxious about following rules, even rarely-respected copyright rules, so I'll stop that line of inquiry right now. But that seriously sounds like a terrible, anti-consumer law to me. As long as the whole group of games & DLC only belongs to one person at a time, I can't think of any reason why selling the rights to it after you're done with it, forever, should be "illegal".

edit:
A friend that works in Congress informs me that this kind of regulation is indeed "unfair", but reminds me that these same people would like to make similar acts like selling used video games and DVDs and books and CDs a crime, if only they could. Which they now can, with the rise of one-time-use online access codes and streaming video and eBooks.

How rude.

[peterock2007]

As long as the whole group of games & DLC only belongs to one person at a time, I can't think of any reason why selling the rights to it after you're done with it, forever, should be "illegal".

I'll go ahead and write to my representative in Congress.

Yeah I have to agree, how's this any diferent than selling used games and cds?

[ASPMike]

I know a lot of people (on here, and everywhere else) have proclaimed Rock Band to be dead multiple times, such as when GH died, when Harmonix became independent, when they put 1,000+ songs on sale, when Blitz came out (no instruments wat?!)

GH didnt die as what most people say. Check the One of Swords blog (Acti's PR dude) he had a recent article/video about it.

The music game genre has slowed tremendously. About the only thing that saved RB was Pro mode, it's massive DLC collection, and what I work in, RBN.