Harmonix blames taxes, other 'little differences' for Rock Band Europe price

*cough* bullshit *cough*

I'm so glad I got all this out of my system with GH and GH2 otherwise I'd be seriously pissed, I expect a slight price rise between the US and Europe, however at basically 200% I find it hard to believe that lots of little things add up to more than an XBox 360 Arcade or Wii.

'Other Differences' = Greed

Sounds like Harmonix wants to take a loss ;)

Yeah Britain's "Fake Instrument Tax" is why the cost of game + instruments as multiple of a normal Xbox360 game price is 2.83x in the USA, and 4.5x in the UK.

Bearing in mind that because I'm comparing like with like it removes any differences between currencies and taxes (except that "Fake Instrument Tax").
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pyEnZQjZEEo4epiy_n-GZNQ

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?RockBand

God, i'm so pissed at the price they've set. I found that petition about ten minutes ago. If you disagree with the pricing, even if you HAVE the game and feel we got the crappy end of the stick, please sign away. When the American price for the bundle was announced, i was actually glad because it seemed cheap for what you got. Gutted it took 5 months to find out how screwed the EU was.

They could've at least told us 6 months ago so we could save up for the damned games.

If I were living in Europe, at those prices, I'd be saying "Fuck Rock Band, I'm off to play Guitar Hero 3".


Just sayin.

You know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it's just, just there it's a little different.

Thank you for your email of 8th April 2008.

Your case number for this is *********, which should be quoted in any future contact about this issue.

Regrettably there is nothing unlawful in the business practice that you have detailed in your email. Traders can sell products for whatever price they choose to however extortionate those prices may appear to be. As long as there is not anything misleading about the way the price or description of the product is presented then traders are not committing an offence.

However I will notify the details through to Trading Standards for their attention to ensure that the business is trading fairly and not to the detriment of consumers. There is no commitment for them to contact you about this.

Regards,
Adam
Consumer Direct West Midlands
________________

well at least that is somewhere!

Guitar Hero for DJs...sort of...
http://www.mywckd.com/wckd_dj_gold/

Having no DLC on the Wii is not Rock Band's fault. It is the Wii's. Sorry but the little Wii that could just doesn't have what it takes to make it work.

Kay explained that VAT adds 17.5% to the total UK price, adding, "We're not trying to screw people."

Correct, they really are not trying to screw people.. they ARE screwing people.

lol, are you serious?
"Done correctly, the Wii has MORE space than the sh*box360 or POS3."
No way the Wii has more space.
Buying SD cards? so you have to change them all the time? Buying 20GB worth of space would cost $200.

don't they realise that as a registered company they can reclaim VAT?

I stopped taking you seriously when you used the same names for PS3 and Xbox 360 that five year olds who are only allowed one console for Christmas and have to justify their choice do

I just don't understand why the game isn't included with the instruments like it is in the US. If that was the case, then the total price point would be £129.99, falling more inline with the typical price increase on games in Europe rather than being way, way over it.

That's what makes no sense to me, perhaps Harmonix could give us a reason why that's the case.

Here's something else you European's should be pissed about:

At American restaurants, water is free, and we get free refills. And the servings of said beverages are about 4 times larger than yours.

Both C. difficile and MRSA are, however, not exclusive to the NHS, existing in British private hospitals and throughout other western healthcare systems; for instance, cases doubled in the USA's private healthcare system between 1999 and 2005, and the UK's death rate is half that of the USA's

TheDave:

Who looks dumb now. :)

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/09/harmonix-wii-needs-hard-drive-for-dlc/

It would also help if Nintendo did something, anything, to help developers use the Wii online. both MS and Sony have large developed libraries and teams of software people to help developers make use of their systems.

Wii online is a Joke. People like you make the joke funny.