Activision pulls the plug on Guitar Hero

[OctoberRaven]

Hopefully they get more of the ones that aren't in GH:A. Not that GH:A had a bunch of shite, mind you. but I just felt it was a very incomplete setlist.

[GoGo Yubari]

What's to hate about Rock Band other than the godawful setlist of RB3, and their equally terrible band spinoffs?

Rock Band is still ahead of Guitar Hero on "band spinoffs I give a fuck about," 1 to 0. Green Day was very unfortunate.

Also RB3's setlist was fairly good but then I couldn't give less of a fuck about metal or what-have-you.

As for Aerosmith, is "Last Child" on Rock Band DLC yet? That's the only one I want so I can have Guitar Hero 2 flashbacks.

[mystikz]

What's to hate about Rock Band other than the godawful setlist of RB3, and their equally terrible band spinoffs?

Rock Band is still ahead of Guitar Hero on "band spinoffs I give a fuck about," 1 to 0. Green Day was very unfortunate.

Also RB3's setlist was fairly good but then I couldn't give less of a fuck about metal or what-have-you.

As for Aerosmith, is "Last Child" on Rock Band DLC yet? That's the only one I want so I can have Guitar Hero 2 flashbacks.

because of the topic of this thread and your sig I just keep visualizing Derrick Bateman playing Guitar Hero with Daneil Bryan looking on confusedly.....

yeah ... oh well

[GoGo Yubari]

That would be amazing.

[GhostMachine]

Damn. And there goes my hopes they'd someday do a Harmonica Hero....

[Skummy]

Or Rock Band will declare victory and continue onward like it has...

Not likely. The whole genre's losing its appeal - it's not the big money-maker it was a couple of years ago. The novelty's worn off, and people aren't willing to fork out huge sums of cash for new peripherals etc., or even to buy the new games that are barely improved - it's a party game, and you only need the one installment in the series to get that enjoyment from it; the gameplay is still essentially Parappa The Rapper with a funny shaped controller.

Sales figures of the Rock Band games have been dreadful - the last game, in its first week of sales, sold barely 50,000 copies for the Wii, and only edged over 100,000 for PS3 - 360 still managed over 300,000, but it's not the blockbuster it was. And Guitar Hero, presumably, was faring even worse.

Frankly I think it's good riddance. I couldn't stand the games, I thought they were clumsy, simplistic, poorly executed, and the whole marketing and presentation style made me want to hurt things - but that's a whole other argument about the concept of rock and roll as "rebellious" and "anti-authority" that I won't get into, though I will say that considering they played up that cliché constantly in their marketing, is there really anything less rebellious, less subversive, less edgy, than rigidly sticking to a pattern laid out before you?

It was a gimmick with a limited shelf life, anyway. I'm not surprised the honeymoon period is finally over, and Activision are doing the sensible thing rather than plodding on further into irrelevance, as Rock Band probably will do now.

[GoGo Yubari]

To be fair, the "WE'RE SO EXTREEEEME, ROCK AND ROLLLLLLL" stuff was far more Guitar Hero (particularly Activision Guitar Hero) than Rock Band.

[King Ellis]

Terrible band spinoffs? Beatles Rock Band is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

[Kaney]

Yes but Green Day Rock Band was awful.

[King Ellis]

So awful that it would drag down the average for the 2 to terrible?

[DFF]

Screw the haters, GH 1, 3 and 6 were brilliant. GH was always more of a challenge than RB, and generally had better initial playlists. RB, however, had a better idea in staggering the release of games and nailing the DLC side of things.

I can see them keeping the track packs coming and, if sales pick up again with RB, that's when we'll probably get another game.

[Cactus Drags]

Guitar Hero was good as far as 3, although that one pissed me off with it's ridiculous so-hard-we're-going-to-make-up-goddamned-notes difficulty. Rock Band will probalby trudge on, although I imagine they'll switch to a much more DLC-centric model and quit making new instruments.

[OctoberRaven]

I didn't mess with GH6 much, but no game that uses a Muse song in it's adverts can be possibly worth owning.

That and the demo sucked balls.

OTOH, I liked GH's guitar controllers better than RB's. Well, not counting the pro mode ones that is.

GH's vocals mechanics were more for me than RB's are, as they gave you more room to add your own flavor to the vocals.

[METALMAN]

I kind of agree with skummy. The way in which the games were marketed as rebellious or risque did irk me a little. Nevertheless, I'd still play them if I had a couple of friends over and they were always pretty good fun. Still, I hardly need anymore than the one I've got, so no great loss.

[Sacrafice540]

Rock Band is done for now aswell. MTV Games closed shop and Harmonix was sold for next to nothing.

DLC will still come. They got all the instruments they wanted to get out now it's just the songs and if you are/were a fan of the whole thing them RB3 is/was the way to go all along as you get the most for 1 disk instead of of having to change when you wanted to play a different song not on that game. I haven't played a GH game since RB came out and am so glad I did.

[KevinStorm]

I can honestly say this is one gaming fad that I will not miss at all.

[Gazz]

Does this mean I'll never have to answer 'You play guitar, how can you be shit at Guitar Hero?' again?

Thank fucking Christ.

[Nick Adams]

Activision/Red Octane over-saturated the market and killed off the entire genre. DJ Hero, Band Hero...

Ah well. I've heard worse gaming news.

[Lint]

Is it really a surprise? With the addition of the Be A Pro mode to RB3, the genre has pretty much gone as far as it can. There isn't much left to do after this. After the BAP mode for RB3 was announced, I figured it'd be the last edition of the game and would go to strictly DLC