Wii Guitar Hero III outputs only mono sound

by Griffin McElroy on Nov 11th 2007 8:05PM

If it weren't bad enough that Activision shipped out Guitar Hero III with no offline co-op quickplay mode, a few careful listeners have noticed another thing they left out - a few channels of sound.

Audiophilic owners of Guitar Hero III for the Wii have noticed that not only does the game not support Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound systems (despite that feature being advertised), but it doesn't even output sound in stereo. As we all know, it's nearly impossible to pass "Cult of Personality" on Expert unless the manic shredding of Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid washes over you from six different angles.

Apparently, Activision is looking into the problem, though they said in regards to a fix, "the time frame is still unknown." For the time being, we're afraid you're going to have to learn to rock out monaurally.

Source

Tags: Activision, Guitar Hero III, GuitarHeroIii, Surround Sound, SurroundSound, Wii

Reader Comments (100)

I have acquired the ears of an audiophile through 5 semesters of digital audio editing classes, and the audio editing involved in all my film and film editing classes, but I have the Wii version and I don't give a shit about mono. It's a really dumb mistake on Activision's part, but I just crank it to 11 and have fun with the thing. Oh wait, I forgot, we're not supposed to enjoy games, we're supposed to enjoy pixel counts and sound channels.

"I spend like 45 mins yesterday at Best Buy trying my damn hardest to SEE the difference between HD and Standard Def...still not seeing it."

You need to visit an optometrist immediately. You have a serious vision problem if you can't tell the difference between HD and SD and I'm not joking or trying to be funny.

Yeah only people without ears can't tell the difference between mono and stereo. Not having at least stereo sound in a video game, especially a music game, is ridiculous. I feel bad for anyone who bought the Wii version.

uhm, i have the game and pretty damn pissed. and yes you can tell the difference. people are just used to crappy mp3s at 128kbps so they cant tell good music from bad.

and as far as the HD/SD argument goes, it really depends on what you are watching. football games: makes a difference (still the same game though) sitcoms: no difference. videogames: not that big a difference but when there is an option for HD i will enable it.

there's my two cents

Good God. Why do some people go out of their way to justify mediocrity? A lack of HD I can understand, but... it's perfectly OK for a music game to have messed up audio?

"seriously I hear no difference between mono and stereo".

Try cleaning that big ball of wax out your ears, because there is a difference...

Is that Ed O'Neill? (Of Al Bundy fame.)

my, those production costs have skyrocketed!!!!

From a developer's standpoint, if a game costs $100 to make, the cost is still too high.

Lol... so somebody tried to play with their wii and found out they had mono....

no?

When you have a surround sound setup, you damn well will notice the difference.

Big question is that once they finally admit there's a problem, how are they going to fix it? No patch system for Wii, so it's a disc recall and remaster.

They should just admit it, get it over with and get the recall happening so they don't lose more money in returned titles.

Or are they just hoping we'll forget about it? I'm not buying GH3 until it's fixed.

So Activision throws a bone to people with unilateral hearing loss, and you all bitch and moan?

For shame...

I turn my deaf ear to your comments.

xbox360 has a game with a minor issue = OMFG! TEH XBOCKS IS TEH DOOMED

playstation 3 has a game with a minor issue = OMFG! THE PAYSTATION IS TEH DOOMED!

nintendo wii has a game with a minor issue = oh, its no biggie.

take off the rose coloured glasses, people. that nintendo seal of quality lost its luster YEARS ago. sitting there and taking it shows your inner fanboy.

One of the problems with the system only outputting mono sound, is that it messes with most people a/v receivers. If you've got the same signal coming out of the left and right, most surround algorithms detect that as center channel audio. So for most stereos, using GH3 on the Wii with standard settings results in all the music coming out of the center channel almost entirely, with very little sound coming out of the left and right.

You can switch your receiver to 5 channel stereo or some such, but I can imagine there are a couple people out there with GH3 for the Wii wondering why it sounds all tinny coming out of their shoddy center channel as opposed to more full range left/right speakers.

Someone kill me for buying a piece of shit console like the Nintendo Wii. I'm so fed up with stuff like this.

I'll shoot you for buying an Activision product and expecting it to be...flawless.

No, I'll shoot you for being a fucking tool and blaming a development mistake on the console being developed for rather than the developers who developed the mistake.

I'll shoot you, but can I keep your Wii? I could use a 2nd one for cool-down sessions from my bed.

I own this game for the Fun. But it still pisses me off that the games sound is royally monoural. That and raining blood is so freaking stupid.

You know, I've had no problems with my copy of GHIII, but now that this mono issue has been brought to my attention, I'm going to be straining my ears next to the speakers. God dammit.

From what I've read, people think the problem is that the other games have a menu in the options to select from mono, stereo, or surround sound, but the Wii has this option in the system menu. The game is defaulting to mono, with no menu to change it. If that's the case, it seems like the easiest solution would be to release a save file patcher that can take the save file (using the SD card) and then just patch the option part of the save to the correct type of audio though. Obviously this is just wishful thinking on my part though, because I doubt even if they wanted to that Nintendo would let Activision run a PC app to modify saves.

TBH, I never even noticed it. I am playing on a normal nothing fancy TV with TV speakers, but I think I'm too into the game to even care.

Glad to see this issue finally getting some press. While I'm annoyed at Activision for releasing a buggy product, I'm even more annoyed at all the reviewers (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/guitarhero3legendsofrock) who gave the game glowing reviews and didn't slam the game for this GIANT GAPING flaw. Fortunately I don't have a center speaker in my home theater, so the sound is nicely balanced from both front speakers, but the back channel is definitely dead.

Top 3 list of things that are MORE surprising than Neversoft shoving a buggy game out the door in the mid-to-late fall:

1. Everything
2. Everything
3. Everything

It's no wonder Neversoft can release the same game most people have gotten tired of (THPS, not GH) year after year and still turn a profit. It's because of all that time and money they save by skipping the entire beta phase (THPS *and* GH).

"Neversoft: Why bother fixing bugs when we can ship alpha-stage code and move on to the next bug-fest?"

...or, you know, buy it on a real system.

The xbox 360 version has the most bugs. Btw the whammy bar issue guess what it is caused by? You press down on it when you are turning on the game or putting in the batteries/wiimote. Same for the fret and strum. Do not ever touch the controller buttons/joysticks when turning on a game or putting batteries in it. Every frigging game manual since the n64 has warned against this.

Btw there is a whammy bar calibration option use it. Also for the person complaining about the neck make sure it's connected firmly and you didn't touch the effing copper contacts when putting in the neck. You dirty the contacts and you expect the thing to work? You are soiling the guitar.

I am going to guess they messed up when downconverting the 5.1 source audio to stereo... That seems like the most charitable and likely explanation.

Anyone claiming there is no difference between mono and audio has never:

-owned a car
-played a CD
-been good at Counter Strike
-gotten laid

okay, the last part is a stretch

or option 5 (applies to me)
- is deaf in 1 ear

Yeah, surround sound with a woofer is pointless for me considering I can only hear highs in one ear and low-end noise in the other due to some freak ear-drum problems that had to be repaired with some experimental sugery that isn't really used anymore do to it's rarity of working. For me it worked, but yeah, I always feel like I'm deaf in one or the other ear occasionally even though I can hear fine in both.

Regardless I'm pissed they would lie so blatently about an important feature. A music game lieing about the audio? Fucking weak. That's like buying Halo and finding out it plays like Full Spectrum Warrior(which is a great game in its own rights, just using it for the sake of comparison)

This is so freaking weak. I'm pissed, my sisters were excited for this game and I'd hate to support MTV but I guess I'll get them Rock Band for the 360 if they get one for Christmas. I wanted to get Guitar Hero for the Wii though, bah, fuck em, won't even buy it for the 360. I'd rather support a shit publisher than a pack of liars. I don't mind if you tell me it's mono but I hate being lied to.

I have the Wii version, and only noticed this when Star Power is activated, which I hardly use. Game is still fun, though I hope they fix it quick. My guitar works great. Guess I win.

I play Guitar Hero from about 3 feet away from the television and I honestly can't tell the difference. It doesn't affect gameplay at all.

Is it a problem? Yes. Is it game-halting? No. Is it Nintendo's fault? No. Just like the problems on the 360 / PS3 aren't Microsoft's / Sony's fault. Though the required dongle on the PS3 is pretty shoddy.

It sounded goofy at first, but I'm starting to believe that the original XBox really IS a more capable game machine than the Wii.

Absolutely pathetic.

There's no problem with the guitars. It's just people complaining that they can't pass the songs :D.

I was going to buy it next week(PAL territory) but now I think I'll pass.

I wonder if this can be fixed with an online update or if there will be a recall.

Knowing Nintendo, it'll have to be a recall.

Stereo is so last gen.

This report is somewhat misleading. The problem only exists if you enable PLii surround sound. If you leave the game at stereo, its actually in stereo. If you have a receiver, then just have it simulate surround based off the stereo feed instead of relying on the game to provide PLii data for surround.

Actually, no, even when on 'Stereo' mode, it still only outputs one channel, it just sends them to both speakers.
In case you don't know, Stereo is supposed to use TWO-channels of audio that are different from each other and send one to each speaker, this game is sending ONE-channel of audio to both speakers. So yes, it is still mono. It would be like having your left ear hooked up for both your right and left ears, essentially only hearing from one side... yeah, pretty shoddy.

If you just use a normal TV, you won't care or notice this problem.

If you have surround sound, this practically kills the intensity of the sound.

The Wii isn't the only one with problems, the Xbox version doesn't put out a bass signal, your subwoofer is used zero.

This is kinda sad. I haven't bought GH3 yet, but I liked how when playing co-op and faceoff etc. in the Guitar Hero series you could hear each player if you had 5.1....

EDIT:

Also Scott above for the win. My 5.1 has that simulate option. Cool.

I don't get the people trying to justify this flaw because they have TVs with bad enough audio that they can't tell a difference. So as long as you own a black and white TV with a single speaker, if a game comes out in black and white at sdtv resolutions with mono audio, despite it being advertised as 1080p with 5.1 surround sound, it doesn't need to be fixed and all the whiners with HDTVs and surround sound systems need to get over it and learn to enjoy the game for its content?

Jeezus christ, I was contemplating the Wii for Super Smash and eventually Guitar Hero III, but dammit. Not having Pro Logic II is one thing, but no FUCKING STEREO?! I thought that mono was dead, except for Ventrilo or something.

I really hope people bitch enough for them to change that, because that's goddarn unacceptable.

I think that the separate neck and body is not a bad idea, even if yours is screwed up its still a good concept, just badly executed. mine works fine, and i enjoy being able to pack the entire guitar in my carry-on back. so quit complaining.

And I just saved up enough to buy the game for my Wii, which would be my first Guitar Hero game. Figures...
And my desire to buy the game and hope I don't have problems fluctuates with each comment I read.

I am not sure if it does make a difference in playing it. But I do think that anything being produced should be of quality, that does not insult peoples intelligence or make an entire compay look a bunch of moronic apes... Who can market and produce something, minus the actually sound quality of it's other games... It's a pretty sad let down... And this being music especially, their should have been a focus on qulaity of sound, because that's what most musicians are judged on, sound and message...and both stink, their message of blatent disregard for producing quality products and the products quality itself...

*an entire company look like a bunch of moronic apes*(Though frankly I think the apes might have produced something far superior).... I don't have millions ridding on my mistake and atleast I caught it....lol

Previous 50 Comments

Wii Guitar Hero III outputs only mono sound

Reader Comments (100)

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