Rumorong: GameSpot says Rock Band 2 will support RB1 songs
And here we go again: After IGN backtracked on comments that seemed to indicate that Rock Band 2's biggest perceived shortcoming – spreading the rhythm game "platform" onto multiple discs, thereby tossing our precious monolithic library of songs to the wind – would in fact be be addressed by the sequel comes word from GameSpot who say ... well, the exact same thing and ... look at that, they backtracked later as well.
Their original story said that Rock Band 2 "will feature full support for all of the original Rock Band songs, all of the downloadable content" as well as the 80 songs on the RB2 disc. GameSpot evidently got their purportedly faulty information from IGN's piece, and a Harmonix representative tells us that both stories were incorrect (both have been updated).
Even so, that doesn't stop us from dreaming of our perfect solution: You mail in both the Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 discs; include $5 for shipping & handling along with three cereal box-tops; wait 4-6 months; get Rock Band 2: MEGA edition back in the mail including all tracks from Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 (including bonus Sgt. Slaughter or William "The Refrigerator" Perry action figures). See? Perfect.
[Thanks, Joe]
Their original story said that Rock Band 2 "will feature full support for all of the original Rock Band songs, all of the downloadable content" as well as the 80 songs on the RB2 disc. GameSpot evidently got their purportedly faulty information from IGN's piece, and a Harmonix representative tells us that both stories were incorrect (both have been updated).
Even so, that doesn't stop us from dreaming of our perfect solution: You mail in both the Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 discs; include $5 for shipping & handling along with three cereal box-tops; wait 4-6 months; get Rock Band 2: MEGA edition back in the mail including all tracks from Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 (including bonus Sgt. Slaughter or William "The Refrigerator" Perry action figures). See? Perfect.
[Thanks, Joe]





















(Page 1) Reader Comments
It starts out easy, something simple, something sleazy, something inching past the edge of reserve.
had to...
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RB1 songs that are on the disc may or may not be playable with the Rockband 2 disc inserted. Will find out during E3.
World Tour is mode in RockBand. That's where it should stay.
RB1 DLC WILL work with RB2. The question is whether the songs that came on the RB1 disc will work with RB2.
Love the site.
I'll stop sucking up now.
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Beat Endless setlist on expert (by all players) and you unlock the ability to download your disc to your drive. This (most likely) stops people from renting the game to get the DLC, well, except those who want to do multiple rentals (then you might as well buy it anyway). I mean, how much is RB1 going to cost anyway by the time RB2 comes out, sans old peripherals.
Or, How about a $5 XBL fee that puts the disc on your drive, and registers the Rock band 1 disc on XBL, allowing the "unlocking" a single time (so each rental copy would get one useage out of it before the disc is "used"). Who knows how/if this could work, but you never know how much thought Harmonix put into this before hand.
Or, what about a trade in program with Gamestop. When you trade in your old copy of RB1, you get a free upgrade to the "limited edition" of rock band 2, that includes a bonus disc of RB1 content. Gamestop gets to sell all the old rockband 1 discs, and you get a single usable disc.
Or, this limited edition could just cost like $80 without a trade-in.
There's no way my wife and I are ever going to do the Endless Setlist on any difficulty level. We just don't have the time to commit to this. So that excludes me and anyone who isn't currently working a full time job from ever accessing our RB1 disc content. Thanks!
$5 gets spread pretty thin after EA takes their piece, MTV takes theirs, Harmonix maybe gets thrown a couple pennies per, and then each artist gets a fraction of a cent. Any more than $5 and people cry foul for having to pay for content they already bought at retail.
Do I need to address a Gamestop trade-in option? Really?
You're coming at this from the wrong side. If they're going to make this content downloadable to everyone who owns RB1, how do they restrict it for people who only buy RB2? If they're going to make it swappable-disc-based, does that mean RB1 songs are partitioned from RB2 songs completely?
How about RB2 extracts the songs from the RB1 disc to your hard drive? Well, that means the RB1 disc is useless and can be resold or traded. That means EA/MTV gets no cut. This is a business... getting on gamers' good side is one thing, especially when in direct competition with a strong competitor, but I can't see EA giving up potential income. I hope they prove me wrong, though.
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That and just selling a premium version of RB 2 that would come with the songs from the first game for people who are just joining the RB universe.
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At least this article had no 'cake is a lie hurr' or 'i can has rock band 1 songs' crap in it.
Games journalism...
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Of course, Sergeant Slaughter was also available for purchase in stores with his Triple T...
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Step 2: Allow RB1 owners to mail in some sort of proof of purchase.
Step 3: Mail RB1 owners a code that allows them to download the RB1 songs for free.
Step 4: ????
Step 5: Profit.
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Rock Band 2 comes with an download option that rips your Rock Band 1 tracks to the hard drive.
All the technical mumbo-jumbo about usage and blah blah blahs can be sorted out later.
Verrrrrry simple, and at an average of 40MB per song, should only take up about 2.4GB on the hard drive.
Sure, that limits those without the harddrive, but really, c'mon, who cares about those people anyway? ;-)
This is, I would assume avoided in the DLC songs, because they likely are paying the labels on a per-download basis, irregardless of which game is access the file.
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