Wii Warm Up: Let's talk Rock Band

by Chris Greenhough on Feb 3rd 2008 10:30AM

EA confirmed earlier this week that it would be bringing Rock Band to the Wii, an announcement which prompted spontaneous high kicks and even the splits from most of the Wii Fanboy crew. This is a fantastic development, and the pairing of Rock Band and the Wii seems absolutely right. It's the ultimate party game for the console that is most suited to social gatherings.

So, we can't help ourselves. We want to chat some more about Harmonix's big-budget rhythm game, and get some of your thoughts. Firstly, will you be buying it? If so, all of the instruments? And which role will you be playing?

Also, is this the kind of thing your relatives would play with you? We'd love to see bands that span the generations, with grandmothers on bass and uncles maintaining a steady beat on the drums. Our families won't have a choice, frankly. They will be playing and they will enjoy it.

Tags: ea, electronic-arts, harmonix, music, rhythm, rock-band, wwu

Reader Comments (39)

Hell yeah I'm getting it. I'd like to try all the instruments. And hopefully my Guitar Hero axe will work with it as well so we can at least have a band of four!

Good luck with that, because PS3 Rock Band owners can't use Guitar Hero guitars thanks to Activision demanding money for a patch that Harmonix made that would have made it compatible. However, the Xbox 360 doesn't have this problem, I think. Oh well. It makes no sense why it shouldn't be compatible, but still, who knows? Like I said though, good luck. :)

The Wii thinks the GH3 guitar is a classic controller. If harmonix goes the same route then it will work perfectly and considering their press releases so far they would love to have it work

addendum... I have the wii guitar working on my computer with a simple script turning classic controller commands into keyboard commands... So yeah, it better work ;)

Already have it for my 360, so im not gettin it... but it would be awesome to see it on the Wii
Sides, I'm already broke from reserving Brawl...

With no DLC for the Wii as far as I can see, it looks like 360 is my vote. They put up new songs all the time.

Hell Yeah im gettin this
I play this at my friends house all of the time and am mad i donot have PS3 PS2 or XBOX360 so now its coming to the wii i can finally play it.
The instruments I Play will probably mostly be the drums but i think i am better at gitar cuz im on expert.
Yeah my family will wants to play my mom sing, brother drums, ME LEad guitar, and my dad will do the bass.
I also hope that we can us our GH3 guitars as i am not going to buy 2 more of them So im definetly crossing my fingers.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought RB for the 360 the day it launched, and i still love it. It's still a great game for my girlfriend and i to play, it's fun when friends come over, and even the family loves it when i take it over to mom and dads. It's a great game, i'm glad wii owners are going to get to enjoy it.

If it's the PS2 version then no, if not, then probably yes.

^^That. I'm not buying it if it's got no online, and I'd also like to have DLC (GH3 can do it, why can't Rock Band?)

Probably would get the 360 version instead, since I already have a guitar for it (Rock Band only comes with one). Unless the 360 guitar could work through the Wii's USB port...

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE SUPERBOWL?!
[/shot in the face]

Don't know if I can really afford it. If I can milk some money from my friends who will be playing it as well, then maybe, but I doubt it. I'm happy with my guitar hero. It's just not worth $150 in my eyes.

DLC and online multi-player are the top features that would make or break the Wii version.

I just bought it for my PS3 about 2 days before they FINALLY announced it for the Wii. There is no excuse for them to have delayed it that long for the Wii, and even less excusable is the denial of the existence of the game up until last week. I might not even have a PS3 right now if I knew Rock Band was coming to Wii... Well, maybe I would, since I wanted a BluRay player. But either way, it's lame that they waited so long to even just announce it, and still no firm release date is set. Inexcusable..By the way, Rock Band's guitars work in GH3 on the 360 because the Rock Band guitar is wired, whereas the other versions are not. Why is that? Because Microsoft charges third parties money to license the "wireless technology" used in the 360, and Harmonix said no. LOL

The game may not be that far into development. They might not have been sure they were going to do it. The Wii offers a lot of obstacles to overcome. There is no guarantee that they can make it as good as other consoles.

Downloadable content, online multiplayer (with or without friend codes), multiple instruments, compatibility with GH3 guitar. These are all decisions they have to make.

If they are going to make it as gimped as the PS2 version, they shouldn't even bother.

True, but the last time they denied it to the public was when the Rock Band mic packaging mistakenly said Wii on it, and they were pressed for comment. That wasn't that long ago - I'm pretty sure it was in January, wasn't it? Surely they knew at that point that they were working on Wii Rock Band..?Either way, your comment about gimped PS2 version appearing on the Wii, well, that should apply to every Wii game. But that isn't exactly the case, the majority of the time. Have a look at the library of Wii games and most of them started life on the PS2. Even Guitar Hero 3. That said, they will certainly have online play, since GH3 did. DLC, on the other hand, I'm not convinced of. For one thing, on my PS3, I downloaded the three Metallica song pack, and it was about 150MB. The Wii itself only has 512MB storage, half of which is available to the user. So that means, you could get maybe 6 songs for Rock Band into that space, assuming you have nothing else installed.It'd be great if SD cards were supported...

Am I the only one that just doesn't get the draw of these Rock Band, Guitar Hero games? I played GH once and was bored.

Yeah, you're the only one. I'm sorry.

I'll buy it on two conditions. The guitar musn't be the POS of the other versions and no DLC=no RB for me.

Moose, I'm with you on that. I don't find them very entertaining, and even with friends, I think it gets boring.

I got the full Special Edition of Rock Band for the 360 from my girlfriend for Christmas. It was def a popular item; all of my family loved it. Back at college, we had plenty of parties that ended with Rock Band at 2 in the morning. It's an expensive game but a great purchase if you can scrape together the cash.

I wouldn't recommend getting it without the drums, though. They make the game.

FWIW, I think GH and RB are great fun and my roommates and I play it all the time. And the four of us have played guitar and drums for a combined 23 years, so it's not just for non-musicians.

Stupid laptop keyboard...

Anyway, the drums on the PS3 (meaning the actual pads) are just mapped to the X,O, Square, Traingle buttons anyway, so I'd bet the Wii drums show as a classic controller too.

I will be buying it, if it offers downloadable content. I really don't want to pay a bunch of money for something that will not age well. The same songs forever don't age well (I never play Taiko Drum Master on my PS2 anymore). It may even give me an excuse to pick up GH3 (sans guitar).

I figured, since its EA, they'll just reuse the Boogie USB Mic

I figured the drums would go USB, and the guitars (of course) would match the GH3 system

I have it for the 360, and now I'm wishing there was some sort of interoperability between the 3 platforms for this game.

My dad has a Wii, and he's been jealous of RB ever since I got it. When I heard the news of its release I got so excited...but then I remembered that the Wii and XB360 use different online schemes.

Oh well.

As long as it's the PS360 version and not the PS2 version, yeah. If I wanted no World Tour and no Character Creation, I'd have gotten the PS2 version already.

I am definitely going to buy this on launch day as long as there will be DLC and better online multiplayer than GHIII.

I'll buy it, if like some of have said, if it has DLC and better online multiplayer than GH3. My nephew has it for 360, and we all played it on the holidays, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews.. it was a blast!!

Thank God.

this preety sweet because i only the wii. having all the instruments will make a great get together for my friends and I. I would probably be the guitar and singer, my friends hate singing.

If it uses Wii-motes to make all the music peripherals wireless, then i'm so getting the Wii version. Download content is not an issue for me as i'm too cheap to buy them. So yeah, total wireless freedom dictates in my books.

Rock Band for the Wii sounds great, but I would rather have it for my XBox 360 because of the almost weekly downloads for it. I fully expect Nintendo to release an external drive to combat this though.

If I can use my GH3 axes (I have 2) then I might pick up the game only and then grab the drum set at some point. I'd really like to play the game but I won't be playing $170 for it.

And while I have no doubt that the song downloads would be smaller in size for the Wii than the 360 (I'm assuming that the packs include art and not just the music) the lack of a storage solution is a concern.

I've got to believe that contrary to what they've said Nintendo must have a plan for some type of external storage system, especially now that WiiWare is almost here.

IIf the Wii version will use the same USB inputs as the PS2 version then I will get it if the game has DLC. I'd just sell the PS2 disk and get the "Game Only" version for Wii

I just picked up the PS2 version last weekend and I would have waited until the Wii version had I know this was comming out for sure.

As a side note... the PS2 version of Rock Band is NOT that bad! If you were OK with the PS2 version of Guitar Hero 1, 2 and 80's then you will be ok with this. It just has the carrier that you play through and unlock songs, you can play though single player as Singer, Drummer, or Guitarist or as the 4 piece band.

I skipped Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii in hopes that Rockband would be coming soon. I'n really looking forward to the drums, and hopefully some DLC.

I hope the drums/guitar/mic are usb compatible i don't want to waste money on extra wiimotes and i want to plug in the drums to my comp via usb.

If it's compatible with the GHIII guitar and it's offered in a game-only version, I'll probably pick it up no matter what. If it is not compatible with the GHIII guitar and/or it's bundle-only, I'll wait.

Finally!I am going to get all instruments.And I will try the drums first.Guitar second because I already have GHIII.

I bet the GHIII guitar is compatible with RockBand.My friend got it for his PS2 and he has a GHII guitar that works with RockBand.

Wii Warm Up: Let's talk Rock Band

Reader Comments (39)

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