Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar compatibility matrix v2

by Christopher Grant { Jul 9th 2008 at 10:00AM }

With this year's introduction of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Rock Band 2, and Guitar Hero World Tour, we figured it was time yet again to update our guitar compatibility matrix. With the introduction of these three games across three platforms, our matrix has gotten increasingly complicated and, for that, we apologize (but, really, if you've gotta take it out on anyone, it's Activision). If we've got anything wrong, leave a comment letting us know and we'll look into it. Otherwise, brace yourself for 96 color-coded info-cells.

Update (18 August): With new information, drums and Rock Revolution, we introduce Instrument Compatibility Matrix v3.0.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

bendak @ Jul 9th 2008 10:05AM

As long as the Gh2 and Gh3 controllers work for Rock Band 2 on 360 I am fine. If they don't, no sale for you, Harmonix. Sorry but I hate your guitars and couldn't give a crap about the other peripherals.

Demaar @ Jul 9th 2008 10:13AM

Harmonix are allowing anyone to make controllers for their games, why would they block out Harmonix's? Also, didn't they try to patch the PS3 version of RB so it would run GH guitars?

It's Activision that are the jerks.

HappyFunBall @ Jul 9th 2008 11:23AM

I agree on the PS3, but on the Wii, Activision used the Wiimote to send the commands (green button=A, etc.), and Harmonix could have emulated it easily, but they chose not to, probably because they just wanted to port the crappy PS2 version over with limited changes so they could print money faster.

Demaar @ Jul 9th 2008 9:41PM

Ah yeah, true. The choice to not use the Wii remote is an odd one. Even if they didn't want to have it slot into the guitar they probably could have had a cable run to it or something... though that'd probably make things more cumbersome. I dunno, the whole situation is screwed up. I wish someone would step in and get them to agree on a unified controller type. Then again, if someone did that stops innovation like GHWT's touch pads and RB's solo buttons.

This is why I'm not managing a publisher I guess lol

Chris @ Jul 9th 2008 10:15AM

This is such a fucking shame and is probably going to keep me from buying GHWT, I like the feel of the RB strat a lotmore, it feels more natural compared to the GH shorties.

Kizzle @ Jul 9th 2008 11:26AM

Yep. As long as they improve the strum bar on the Rock Band guitar, it is far better than the GH offerings. The Rock Band guitar's frets are much better and it's closer to the size of a real guitar.

natels @ Jul 9th 2008 10:16AM

Can we assume same goes for drums?

TVGenius @ Jul 9th 2008 10:44AM

Seeing as how the GH drums have five pads, unless the RB2 drums have five (and the game can also support the 4-pad RB1 drums, since they said the old instruments would still work) I wouldn't hold your breath.

natels @ Jul 9th 2008 10:46AM

Eep.. Not the news I was looking for.

ScottG13 @ Jul 9th 2008 10:17AM

Activision is clearly the bad guy here, from a customer stand point.

But that GH3 Les Paul is a terrific controller. Thank God for MSFTs insistence on controller standards.

Activision can eat some balls on breaking compatibility.

Haggard @ Jul 9th 2008 12:36PM

RedOctane are the superior peripheral maker, and Harmonix are the superior game maker.

It's a shame they parted company after GH2.

ScottG13 @ Jul 9th 2008 12:56PM

It sure is. Too bad Activision is trying to strangle this genre with such great growth potential.

copa @ Jul 9th 2008 10:20AM

Activision's anti-consumer policy is finally going to bite them in the ass this fall.

When Guitar Hero: World Tour comes out in October, there will already be two generations of Rock Band out on the market.

They might be surprised when they find out how few consumers actually want to buy a second drumset to play their game, just because they insisted on locking out all Harmonix instruments.

Brucie B @ Jul 9th 2008 10:26AM

Looks like,
Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul &
Guitar Hero 2 Xplorer on the 360 is the Best way to go!

Thanks for the info

DrHockey @ Jul 9th 2008 10:35AM

Question for those who have played Rock Band - is the game any fun if you just have the guitar and none of the other instruments? My NYC apartment is basically a box and doesn't have room for all the other stuff. I'd like to pick up RB or RB2 but not sure I'd get much out of it.

Erving velez @ Jul 9th 2008 10:41AM

I have Rockband with just the guitar. I have fun, just the guitar and the game. It is just like playing guitar hero with added features.

I like it, my apartment is small too and I have no space for drums, and the wife would not allow the mess. lol

Dave @ Jul 9th 2008 11:03AM

I had it with just the guitar for months and absolutely loved it. It's pretty much the same as Guitar Hero.

A @ Jul 9th 2008 11:41AM

you can get the mic too- that wont take up much space!

Tiptup300 @ Jul 9th 2008 1:39PM

I have all the instruments, but I only ever really play with guitar. When my friends are over we play all the instruments, but yeah. Guitar DLC is awesome.

DeadPlasmaCell @ Jul 9th 2008 3:04PM

Yea it's still pretty fun. Though I think Rock Band is much much easier, overall, compaired to Guitar Hero.

Krispycorn @ Jul 21st 2008 5:09AM

For regular game play, i say its a little less chalenging than GH, but its a whole new set of songs, so thats fun to play.

Online play would be better than GH because you can join in and make a band with others who have the drums you cant find space for.

All in all, yes. Rock Band will be fun with just guitar.

Sam406 @ Jul 9th 2008 11:00AM

You know, I have a really weird guitar hero gruitar.

It's non of the above, so it must be 3rd party. But the odd thing is that I can't find it in the internet.

It's for PS2, but wireless, has 10 fret buttons, and looks just like the Xbox Xplorer.

Ever heard of one like this? Give me a link if you do, I want to know it's compatibily chart.

Dave @ Jul 9th 2008 11:05AM

Maybe it's made by Ant Commandos?

http://www.theantcommandos.com/

They have a bunch of random PS2 ones. Where did you get it? I see them a lot on ebay and the like.

Sam406 @ Jul 9th 2008 11:50AM

No, I didn't find it, it looks a lot like the blue Freedom V only in the shape of the Xplorer and with 10 frets (2 green 2 yellow 2 red 2 blue and 2 orange)

murph @ Jul 9th 2008 11:06AM

X360 GH3 Wireless...FTW!! Now where's the drum compatibility matrix?

The Gamespot RB2 preview said the new drums have the same number of pads, so any chance of the RB2 drums working on GHWT are out the window. If Activision is smart, their drums (which look kick ass) will work with RB too. Otherwise...no sale.

Dave @ Jul 9th 2008 11:12AM

It's probably made by The Ant Commandos.

http://www.theantcommandos.com/

Rob Bourne @ Jul 9th 2008 11:24AM

This news is sweet as a bell.

Now to fund my imminent purchase of GH3, GH:A (w/guitar) and Rock Band...

gs942002 @ Jul 9th 2008 11:27AM

Wait!!!!! Rockband guitars work with gh3 but gh3 guitars don't work with rock band????? (for Wii)

Dirty @ Jul 9th 2008 11:36AM

This peripheral game is making me sick.

Alexander @ Jul 9th 2008 11:40AM

Just curious, but what about PS2/PS3 guitar compatibility?

Hohlraum @ Jul 9th 2008 11:48AM

I think tey are the same part at least for rock band.

lego91994 @ Jul 9th 2008 12:00PM

You guys should add Rock Revolution to the table when the information for it becomes available and make a table for drums compatibility aswell. I can remember reading somewhere that the GH guitars will work for RR, and they even used them to demo the game.

baby sea tuna @ Jul 9th 2008 2:48PM

Or, they can just not bother since you're probably the only person who is actually interested in Rock Revolution.

lego91994 @ Jul 9th 2008 5:55PM

Konami were the people who started this whole rock rhythm game craze, so it will be interesting to see how their game turns out. Besides, if its already compatible with the GH or Rock Band guitars, it might be worth it for some different songs.

Bakkster @ Jul 9th 2008 12:07PM

For the sake of readability, could you sort the rows and columns? It would be far more readable if the Stratocasters were adjacent and the RB1 and RB2 were adjacent. Same goes for the GH games.

Philip (Fernando Rocker Defence Force) @ Jul 9th 2008 4:22PM

Right now the older games are on the right and the old guitars are on the top. It's all done by when each game/guitar was released.

Philip (Fernando Rocker Defence Force) @ Jul 9th 2008 4:24PM

old guitars are on the bottom.*

MikeJett @ Jul 9th 2008 12:21PM

since when was the GHII Xplodr compatible with Rock Band? Did they patch it?

1Love

nick @ Jul 9th 2008 1:37PM

its always worked with rock band, i have one myself and it works great

MikeJett @ Jul 9th 2008 5:47PM

shoot .... maybe my guitar is broken then ....

Rahabib @ Jul 9th 2008 12:31PM

I stopped at GH2 because the need to constantly get new guitars or adapters is just insane. Fun games but until someone can make a guitar that works for everything on the PS2/3 and or Wii I am done with Guitar based games.

Jason @ Jul 9th 2008 12:47PM

is that an error or does the rock band 1 strat for wii work with guitar hero III? That seems counter intuitive since it also is marked as not working for GH aerosmith

Joe Smith @ Jul 9th 2008 1:12PM

Activision should be shot and Xbox should be severely beaten for allowing this. One of the hard and fast rules on Xbox has always been that any controller work with any game.

baby sea tuna @ Jul 9th 2008 2:49PM

At least 2 of the controllers work for every game up there on the 360. That's more than can be said for any of the other systems.

Just Saying @ Jul 9th 2008 1:48PM

These charts would be easier to read if the GH products and the RB products were next to each other, instead of having everything split up. It's only going to get worse with the Konami Rock Rev stuff too :-)

UltraTram @ Jul 9th 2008 1:50PM

Just a little video I put up on YouTube to put this to rest for the 360:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCEYUpqgotk

Doug @ Jul 9th 2008 2:06PM

Why is Activision being raked over the coals here? Their guitars work with the most games, not the least. And the GH3 guitars work exactly the same as the GH2 guitars (created earlier by Harmonix) on any platform (Xbox, PS2) that GH2 was available for.

It's Harmonix that broke compatibility when they released the Stratocaster; up until it came out there was a standard way for the guitars to interface with the games. Their Strat only works with Rock Band on any platform.

It's really up to the game maker to make sure that any given guitar works with their game, not the guitar maker (because there aren't any drivers to install; the game talks directly to the hardware). Since GH3 came out first, Activision couldn't have tested with the RB guitar, but Harmonix could have tested and added compatibility for the GH2/3 peripherals.

I'm in process of developing a PC-based program that uses these guitars for input, and far and away the way that the original GH2/GH3 guitars for Xbox work is the best way to do it. The RB Strat is a hack at best, and I'm not surprised that it doesn't work with GH.

rmjohnson124 @ Jul 9th 2008 2:38PM

Where did you get your completely incorrect info? Activision went to court to stop Sony from releasing a patch that would allow Rock Band guitars to function for GH3. Harmonix had no part of these court proceedings. Peripherals have a rediculously high profit margin. If Activision was to allow the superior peripherals from Rock Band to function on their game, they give up money. Rock Band, on the other hand, was a driving force in the original Sony patch being created in the first place knowing that they had nothing to lose by allowing open compatibility.

Also, when GH: World Tour comes out, none of the songs from older versions will work with it. Rock Band is releasing a RB2 version of every song from RB1 and all DLC.

ProfStevie @ Jul 9th 2008 3:08PM

I asked a Harmonix employee on the Rock Band forums why Rock Band Strats don't work on at least Guitar Hero II (since that does seem to go against all their crowing about controller standards). I got a strange answer:
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?p=802107#post802107

Basically, "I really can't say anything, but I swear it's not our fault."

Doug @ Jul 9th 2008 3:17PM

I don't know why there were court proceedings. Dumb, yes.

From the point of view of the developer, Harmonix deviated from the standards they had created earlier with the original GH guitars when they released the RB guitars; they worked differently than everything they created earlier. The Activision guitars work exactly the same as the original Harmonix guitars. So Harmonix broke everything, not Activision. Activision has just continued using the standards originally set by Harmonix.

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