I agree 100%.

Activision is not helping themselves. Everybody who wants the patch wants to buy a Les Paul to use with Rock Band, or use a Les Paul that they've already purchased.

Activision wants to charge Harmonix for spending time and money on developing a patch that will help Activision sell more hardware.

Clearly, Activision believes that they can stave off the decline of Guitar Hero, and the rise of Rock Band, by starving the PS3 owners for a month or two until additional strats come out.

It is a stupid, stupid, strategy. According to the November NPD numbers, PS3 users make up less than 20% of the user base for Rock Band. But Activision just advertised to 100% of gamers that they will screw the consumers over at any chance if they think it will make them an extra buck or two.

There is the fact that GH:3 is a much more faithful follow up game to GH:2 than Rock Band is though. Looking at some of the note charts for Rock Band makes me cry tears of boredom.

If you'd actually played GH2, Dave, you'd know your statement is pretty wrong.

TheGreatDave, I don't think you've played Green Grass and High tides, or Blackened, or Ride the lighting. Ride the lightnings solo makes me want to cry.

Dave: I have to agree with some of the follow ups. You obviously haven't played both or you just don't grasp the fact that Rock Band is about the "band" and not just an endless guitar shredfest. Though there are some very challenging guitar oriented songs in the game (and more in DLC).

As a guitarist of 15+ years, I can tell that Harmonix has people tracking their songs that know how it feels to play the song and they do their note charts with that in mind. They really seem to try and mimic the feel of playing the song. Neversoft, sadly, went the route of making songs difficult, sometimes overly difficult without really replicating the feel of playing them. Cherub Rock being a perfect example of this (on expert at least).

Neversoft did the best they could do, but you can tell that there's a passion behind the previous versions of the game and in rock band that simply isn't there in GH3. Not to mention the nerfing of the game in general where hopo's are simply easier in gh3 than gh2 or RB.

yah I agree. It's very different and at first may turn some people off becuase it's so different, but if you give it some time I think it's a much better, more realistic feeling product. I'll say this, I played on it for about a week non-stop and then went back to the les paul and put up my best expert scores yet on GH3.

again, it's the difference in one company wanting to mimic the feel of the real thing compared to the other just wanting to sell as much as they can.

It may be business, but ideally you want to be hurting your competitors, not your consumers.

Activision didn't make the patch. Harmonix did. Activision didn't really do anything here but they want money for their permission to release the patch. Sony won't release Harmonix's patch because Activision is objecting.

dude, *Harmonix* made the patch for _their own game_ and Activision is asking them to pay for it.

I was under the impression that GH3(Activiosn?) made the patch and submitted it to Sony, then decided they wanted money for it. I could be wrong since i get confused on what company makes what product sometimes, but i dont know or care really. It all comes down to buisness, and yes Dr you normally are trying to hurt the competion but they seem to be doing that if alot of the Rock Band Guitars are being returned, ppl will use the GH3 guitars while the RH one is gone. But like i said, its not a NICE move to try and make them pay for the patch, but its not exactly surprising.

No. Harmonix wrote the patch. Activision wants to be paid to allow Harmonix to release a patch Harmonix wrote. Their justification is that the patch supports the Activision guitars, so they should get paid. Which is weird since doesn't Activision sell the guitars at a profit anyway?

In all honesty, they have the right to do this. I, in no way, feel Activision is in the wrong here. It is their technology (they own it) and they have the right to use it for what they want. I applaud Activision for taking a stand.

lol wait, what?

Do you go to a casino and root for the house to win? Of course it's their right, but it's unquestionably a dick move that is not going to help them in any way. It's going to prevent more sales of GH3 than it will any Rock Band sales. In fact, since all of the people with Rock Band now have to buy Strats when they're available, it's actually going to make Harmonix more money.

I guess Activision is afraid that once people see Rock Band (and especially all of the DLC), their monumental laziness in making new game content is going to be especially embarassing. I'd be afraid if I were them, too.

Really Really bad PR. And illogical to boot. It's like Logitech wanting to charge Microsoft to allow their mice to work in windows Vista.

Yeah but Logitech isn't in direct competition with Microsoft; that's the thing. Your analogy would be better if you replaced Logitech with Mac allowing PC users to use the 1 button mouse.

Activision has the better controller according to most people. That's why everyone is bitching about it. So to Activision, they win if people don't play Rock Band on the PS3 because the controllers suck. Because you know what game DOESN'T have sucky controllers? Guitar Hero III.

Hate to be the voice of dissent here but there is absolutely no reason for Activision to have to let Harmonix use their controllers from a business standpoint.

I agree with jerk face.

And you are correct. They want to protect their IP, and I get that. But they did it at the cost of the future of their game. A game I will refuse to purchase. Sure plenty of others will, and they aren't going to miss my $60, but I'll be damned if I'm going to support them any longer.

PS...Alton Brown is GOD!

Actually, both controllers are having a bevy of problems.

Whether you buy the Strat and it's "picking style" pickup (which the initial shipment had bad ones) but more realistic placement of buttons and proportions, or you buy the Les Paul for it's strumming style pickup but sacrifice potential dropped notes on the green and red buttons in conjunction with a wireless signal that gets obliterated with a large amount of wireless devices nearby.

Both controllers have issues. I just hate the toy proportions on the Les Paul.

I don't want to use Activision's controller. Why people are bitching is because many people bought GH3 when it game out because they didn't want to wait for RB. They did this thinking they could use the GH3 guitar in RB, so if they bought both games they could play two player on RB at least (if not both) despite the shortage of guitars from both companies (which was indicated well in advance).

Well, people like us already couldn't play two player GH3 since Activision didn't support the RB controller, and in fact when GH3 boots up it says "this game is licensed only for use with official Red Octane controllers".

But at least there was hope to play two player Rock Band, right? Harmonix indicated they wanted to support all guitars they could. Well, Activision managed to screw us there too by rockblocking Harmonix from supporting the GH3 Les Paul.

Activision is only screwing themselves in the long run. When more RB Strats become available, PS3 owners will buy them and then will have two guitars for RB and NO incentive to play GH3 or buy any DLC or guitars for it.

I found GH3 to rather suck (which Activision since patched) and sold my GH3 setup anyway, I just don't really like the Les Paul in the first place, even though mine worked fine.

This would be like Cisco charging Edsger Dijkstra to use OSPF on their routing equipment.

Yeah, so what, I am a nerd and proud.

"Yeah but Logitech isn't in direct competition with Microsoft"

Uhh, actually they are... they both make mice.

I would have no respect for Harmonix if they caved to such an absurd demand.

Since the "pay us" offer was put on the table like 2 weeks ago, and no progress has been made, I'm guessing Harmonix will not cave. More likely they're probably ramping up production to get their own guitrollers out to the market ASAP.

*Don't want us contributing to your bottom line, Activision? Fine, we'll take from it!

Activision owes you for the shitty job they did on the Wii version of the game. Seriously. How do you get worse graphics/animation than the PS2 version of GH2?

you bought their controller for use with Guitar Hero 3, not with Rock Band. I dont think they want the consumers to pay to use the controller in Rock Band, they want Harmonix to pay.

It doesn't freaking matter if I use it to scratch my ass, Jody, they were already compensated for the hardware, and its subsequent use.

Thus far I'd have to agree with you, jojo. GHIII was my first GH experience, but I'd be highly critical of GHIV, especially when RB offers me a similar gaming experience with more replay value.

For all we know, RB2 might carry a new peripheral of some sort with all new parts to play. First thing off the top of my head: a keyboardist/piano parts.

You my mutha fucka!

I love hispanic robots!