E3's Rock Band guitars wired, fuels 360 price speculation

27 Comments by Richard Mitchell Jul 12th 2007 7:15PM
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, E3, Rhythm

After an intense session of Rock Band from Harmonix -- we totally nailed the vocal for Stone Temple Pilots' "Vasoline" by the way -- we noticed that the guitars had dangling wires tethering them to the Xbox 360. Considering the game has been widely advertised as having wireless guitars, this made us curious. Remembering the recently leaked price memo, you may recall that the wireless 360 guitar was listed at $79.99 while the PS3 guitar was listed at $59.99. Some have speculated that the 360 discrepancy is the result of having to pay Microsoft to use its proprietary wireless technology. Is MTV Games making cheaper wired guitars for those that can't afford wireless? Mmm ... could be.

Tags: e307, ea, electronicarts, harmonix, mtvgames, rockband

(Page 1) Reader Comments

TheGuy: Jul 12th 2007; 7:18PM

Bluetooth FTW!!!

Nick O: Jul 12th 2007; 7:20PM

Hopefully the eventual (possible, god damnit, I hope they make a) Wii version will be even cheaper since all the wireless tech is in the Wiimote...

Ian Von Porter: Jul 12th 2007; 7:23PM

Proprietary wireless formats FTL.

Seroth: Jul 12th 2007; 7:32PM

But why would the 360 guitars cost more than the PS3 ones, but the drums and mic would cost the same as the PS3?

But, yeah, damn Microsoft and their proprietary wireless crap.

Justin U: Jul 12th 2007; 7:42PM

Who the hell is playing it that far from the TV, that Wireless is a necessity?

Imadogg99: Jul 12th 2007; 7:49PM

It's annoying as hell with a wire duh, you don't have to be far...

Seroth: Jul 12th 2007; 7:56PM

Sometimes you rock out too hard, moving around and such, jokingly showing off, and the controller becomes unplug. It's happened to me before on the PS2 Guitar Hero.

marcandrer: Jul 12th 2007; 7:50PM

what realy concerns me is the position of the Start button.. I don't want to be pulling some Peter Moore in the middle a guitar solo :)

soccerdude21490: Jul 12th 2007; 7:52PM

No I don't think its any of that, I do believe though that the extra $20 is for the Microsoft wireless technology thing... but as far as why its wired is just because thats what a lot of Tech Demos have, like when they showed 360 demos or stuff like that, they always have it wired in in case the batteries died or w/e

GodisaMyth: Jul 12th 2007; 7:56PM

Microsoft needs to recoup money wherever they can. 1 Billion+ is not small change for anyone.

Imadogg99: Jul 12th 2007; 8:01PM

Except Micro$$$$$oft

Exo: Jul 12th 2007; 8:02PM

Or it could be just they used a wired one for the show cause there are so many wireless devices around.

baby sea tuna: Jul 13th 2007; 8:36AM

Or because they don't want anyone running off with the guitar.

sheppy: Jul 12th 2007; 8:03PM

Pulling a Peter Moore... by god he is never going to live that down....

Alex Levine: Jul 12th 2007; 8:03PM

I think it has to do with batteries and the fact they want as little interference as possible during the demo. All the regular games seemed to be using wired controllers as well.

That, or they haven't finnished making the wireless version yet. *shrug*

NeverSage: Jul 12th 2007; 8:11PM

I'm really glad they made this so similar to guitar hero, down to the star power and all. I was afraid they'd make a bunch of unnecessary changes just to differentiate themselves from GH.

colin: Jul 12th 2007; 8:25PM

i know i'm probably the only one ... but i could care less about rockband. imho i think the whole thing is gimmicky. i don't want to buy a game, a guitar, a drum, and a mic + pay more for rereleased peripherals "updated" to technology standards (wireless)that have been around for years. just release some more guitar hero discs or games that will work with my current guitar ... my wired 360 guitar works just fine. does anyone else feel the same way?

Sean DL: Jul 15th 2007; 2:19AM

yeah, you know you only have to buy the game, since the GH guitar works with Rockband too....

[.sm0ke.]: Jul 12th 2007; 8:37PM

GameStop's preorder lists show a wired and wireless version, and they probably had the wired ones at E3 so nobody would run away with them.

Kenny: Jul 12th 2007; 8:40PM

It's nice that they're giving us options. I guess for some people, the guitar being wired won't matter to them so they have the option to save some $$$ and go with the wired guitar.

But yeah, like the comments above, propriety format FTL :(

ROCKBAND Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2346954822

nakedhooch18: Jul 12th 2007; 8:46PM

Microsoft killed my father, and raped my mother!

someone: Jul 13th 2007; 3:42PM

and I witnessed it :)

Blinkus: Jul 12th 2007; 9:47PM

I can't honestly believe that the licensing fee would be so great to necessitate such a huge discrepancy of 20 more dollars per guitar.

Something else has to be at play.

Tony: Jul 13th 2007; 12:32AM

Yeah, seriously. And you have to imagine that MS knows they'd be pricing the game out of the realm of reason if they did so.

I mean, there's a strong chance the guitars just aren't as far along for the system as one would hope at this point. Since MS's stuff is proprietary, maybe they still haven't gotten it worked into the game, but still wanted to demo it.

I mean, I obviously have no clue, but there's a LOT of conclusions you can draw from it... anything else is just hearsay at this point.

Otter: Jul 13th 2007; 2:19AM

I dont see why they dont just make them with their own wireless and use a dongle in the usb slots on the 360 just to give the finger to Microsoft for being such asshats in the first place.

shoeshine: Jul 13th 2007; 3:48AM

I actually want a wired one. I'll finally be able to play Frets on Fire without a keyboard.

SenorChach: Jul 13th 2007; 10:23PM

You can already play Frets on Fire with the X360 wired Xplorer Guitar hero controller. It has a usb connection and everything, and they are about 50-60 dollars CDN. Drivers are provided by Microsoft by letting XP search for the drivers on the internet. It is actually the first peripheral that works for this method that I have seen hahaha.

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