Red Octane says Xbox 360 guitars patched via Xbox Live

by Alexander Sliwinski { Apr 14th 2007 at 11:30AM }

Apparently Red Octane discovered the problem in their guitars and fixed it with a software patch this morning. On Red Octane's website they're saying that as of 4 AM pacific today a patch is available via Xbox Live that "should resolve the situation where input from the whammy bar was not always recognized."

Red Octane admitted a week ago that two models of their Xbox 360 guitars were "defective." This followed a week of wannabe guitar heroes discovering that their axes were having problems with their whammy bar, strangely the whammy defect seemed to have a higher prevalence in the first batch of guitars with a 95055 on the box. Red Octane says the situation is fixed now. This doesn't explain the sticky yellow fret button or the complaints of "shocks" by some people, but the original whammy bar issue seems resolved. People with "defective" guitars, after downloading the patch, is it fixed?

[Thank you James]

Tags: busted guitars, defective whammy bars, guitar hero II, GuitarHeroIi, xbox 360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

John @ Apr 14th 2007 11:52AM

It seems better, but my whammy bar still isn't as responsive as my PS2 guitar.

ANt @ Apr 14th 2007 11:54AM

I went through 2 guitars, the buttons on them died on me after about 4 hours of use. Finally got my money back....

Checked them on my PC (control panel) they were gone.....has nothing to do with a patch....

Farron @ Apr 14th 2007 12:01PM

I had a problematic whammy bar, and the patch released has now fixed it! Thankyou Red Octane! :)

Ben Furfie @ Apr 14th 2007 12:14PM

Nope. Yellow button is still sticking when holding down Green, Red and Blue.

*shakes head*

AirIntake @ Apr 14th 2007 12:30PM

Mine worked fine before the patch. Mine works fine after the patch. Just got 215,000 on Free Bird with it.

copa @ Apr 14th 2007 12:59PM

I wish they had patched the leaderboard bugs. It really wrecks things when you have fake scores topping the overall charts.

vincenzo7 @ Apr 14th 2007 1:33PM

I didn't know about people getting shocked. My first guitar fried on me. It worked then after plugging it in again, it didn't light up anymore. Sounds like there was a short in some of them.

Grant @ Apr 14th 2007 1:49PM

It fixed my whammy bar! I was all worried about how to get a replacement guitar since my copy of it was a gift. This seems to have fixed it!

As for dead buttons, I don't think this patch claims to be fixing that problem.

urabob @ Apr 14th 2007 1:54PM

The Hyper Speed code stopped working for me after the update. Um, not that that I use codes or anything... but anyone else having the same problem? >_>

ssuk @ Apr 14th 2007 1:57PM

You can't fix hardware faults such as sticking buttons with a software patch, it's more of a hardware issue.

Mr Khan @ Apr 14th 2007 2:29PM

@ ssuk

Well, you could alleviate the problem a little with a software patch, alter the input code probably

Like if an analog shoulder button was sticking, edit the code to recognize only the "digital click"

it may not make the problem go away, but it makes it easier to deal with

Guy @ Apr 14th 2007 2:37PM

@ urabob

I never heard of hyperspeed mode, so I looked it up, put in the code, and it works fine. Its pretty fun that way, keeps you on your toes!

So ya, works fine here..

why not the LS2LS7? @ Apr 14th 2007 2:37PM

Could this follow the script any more closely?

Small company with pluck gets bought out by big, old, tired company looking for an edge. First product is rushed out the door with multiple problems making it appear they didn't even properly test it to see if it works well.

This is an ill portent.

I bet the DLC functions are well tested. Good gameplay is secondary to making sure the upsell functions are in place.

David @ Apr 14th 2007 2:39PM

Mine works fine now, thankyou Red Octane, Harmonix, and Activision, and all else involved.

Christopher7xii @ Apr 14th 2007 2:42PM

"6. I wish they had patched the leaderboard bugs. It really wrecks things when you have fake scores topping the overall charts."

Uhh... What bug, and how the hell do you get fake scores? Just because everyone is better than you doesn't mean that they're cheating. It means you suck.

Unless you mean the design flaw where they merged the high score across all song difficulties? Which I think was a dumb thing to do

Dravir @ Apr 14th 2007 2:52PM

This is great, I just wish it would have addressed the issue where the entire guitar dies (even in the 360 dashboard). My second guitar died to the point the strum bar didn't even register to move through the menu's.

UkuleleSHIMA @ Apr 14th 2007 4:57PM

Still doesn't make up for your OUTRAGEOUS prices on the downable songs, Red Octane. Fix that and you'll be my best friend again. Until then, a chunk of the love I have for your game died the day you took your fans for granted with those prices. :(

Quastor @ Apr 14th 2007 5:58PM

@15

'Uhh... What bug, and how the hell do you get fake scores? Just because everyone is better than you doesn't mean that they're cheating. It means you suck.'

Take a look a the lop of the GHII leaderboard for non-career only scores. You will obviously see the top 3 or so people have scores that aren't even possible by 5* every song available right now. My assumption would be someone has found a way to get custom songs under the "Downloaded Tracks" section.

guitarherolover @ Apr 14th 2007 6:20PM

What do I do if my guitar is deffective? Mine just started not working.

BIGGEN @ Apr 14th 2007 6:35PM

i opened mine up and fixed it that way last week.

Smacksmackums @ Apr 14th 2007 6:45PM

Mine whammy still has a slight delay before registering. Not nearly as nice as the ps2 guitars, but the update did seem to make it a bit better.

Still thinking about returning my guitar.

GoonieGooGoo @ Apr 14th 2007 8:43PM

They may say its a software issue but I returned 4 units....with varying degrees of problems with both the whammy and powerup sensor.

Ended up just returning my last unopened one...I'd rather wait till they release a new batch of guitars with the problems fixed and properly calibrated.

All the Gamestops have Zero in stock (manager despite Red Octane's claims....said there was a recall on units) as well as all the Best Buys near me.....

You have to wonder why RED OCTANE won't just admit they made faulty controllers.......

rc @ Apr 14th 2007 9:16PM

@ Guy

You're right on both counts. Hypermode is fun and the code still works. I guess my fingers were a bit too tired to enter the code fast enough. Thanks for the help. :D

Also, this is our first experience with Guitar Hero so we never noticed the whammy issue. It play just fine before. Now with the fix... even better!

BillDoE @ Apr 15th 2007 10:31AM

"19. What do I do if my guitar is deffective? Mine just started not working."

Here's an idea http://www.myclassiclyrics.com/artist_biographies/jimi_hendrix_biography.htm

Mark @ Apr 15th 2007 6:19PM

GH2 patch Bricking consoles..

Xbox 360 Guitar Hero 2 patch bricks consoles.

http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=3&PostID=11717177

LOL...

Mark @ Apr 15th 2007 6:19PM

Xbox Dead more like..

Xbox 360 Guitar Hero 2 Xbox Live patch bricking many consoles.

http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx...ostID=11717177

http://forum.guitarherogame.com/Defa...=posts&t=17747

dan.gaede @ Apr 15th 2007 10:24PM

My 360 has run perfectly fine since it's manufacture date of 2005 10 19.

That is until today. 2 minutes after I loaded the patch. 3 seconds into the intro to that Wolfmother song.

So yes, I definitely think there is an issue here.

I would ask why it is that I am now out $168 to have Microsoft replace my unit, when a software patch that RedOctane released and Microsoft certified has bricked my system.

I am extremely pissed off about this.

Davis Geaves. @ Apr 16th 2007 11:32AM

Damn, download the patch this morning, been playing for an hour, went to make a cup of coffee and when I came back, the game had frozen.

I rebooted, and then all it did was come up with the red rings of death...

Phoned Microsoft, and they want loads of $$$ to fix it... Not good...

Anth @ Apr 16th 2007 12:28PM

And for the people without XBox Live? Or a 360 without a HDD? Oh, I guess they're just screwed. How about better testing - that's why we pay a premium on console games, is it not? Quality control? I knew this was going to happen - once downloading on consoles started to become prevalent, the next thing to happen would be game patches coming on a regular basis. Games will be released crappy like PC games for users to beta test, because they can just download a patch later on.

Screw that. This should never have made it past quality control.

Rob @ Apr 17th 2007 1:26AM

Before the patch - whammy was screwed.
After patch - works absolutely fine (and so does the Xbox luckily!)

Brian @ Apr 17th 2007 9:20PM

Add me to the list of bricked 360s after playing guitar hero 2. I don't have the ring of death but my 36o can't read any disks. Wondering if I can get eb games to take it without them noticing before paying microcow more money.

CitizenErazed @ Apr 7th 2008 6:16AM

Just to weigh in. I've had my 360 back from Microsoft for 5 days. Count them, 5. It went back the first time due to overheating, so maybe it's just more susceptible to dying anyway and it was going to, I don't know, but I had no problems with it until the GHII patch. Crashing all over the place today, but only with GHII. And now it's dead. 3 red lights, the whole enchilada. I got 4 hours of Gears of War out of it on Thursday (the day it came back) plus 2 hours of PES6 (I think in total I played it for about 7 hours that day, smooth as silk). I've racked up about 7 hours in total over three days with GHII, and that's the only game I've played since I've got it.

It's been theorised on some websites that having both the guitar controller and another controller connected could be something to do with it, and I always had my wireless controller online as well as the guitar connected. Don't know if that's just scuttlebutt or what, but might be worth checking if your 360 hasn't been bricked yet...