Report: Only 35 songs from Guitar Hero World Tour work with GH5 [update]

by Ben Gilbert { Sep 1st 2009 at 7:30PM }

Update: It appears as though Activision itself has answered the question of what songs specifically are importable into Guitar Hero 5 from World Tour (35 songs) as well as Smash Hits (21 songs), via the Activision Customer Support Center. The full list of songs available from each game has been dropped after the break -- thanks to everyone for sending this in!

We can't lie to you, friends -- when Activision claimed songs from last year's Guitar Hero World Tour would be playable in this year's Guitar Hero 5, we were skeptical. It seems that skepticism proved right, as USA Today reveals that a hair over one third of GHWT's tracks can be downloaded into the new game. Specifically, just 35 of World Tour's 86 tracks are playable in GH5, with an unspecified amount of Guitar Hero Smash Hits tracks available "later this Fall." The licensing fee for those 35 tracks is 280

/$3.50 for Xbox 360 and PS3, though it remains unclear whether or not that fee would include Smash Hits' tracks when those are released.

We've asked Activision for clarification of which tracks specifically are available in GH5 and when Smash Hits will be ready for download, but unfortunately were told that we'd get a release tomorrow with "tons of details." So this is where we crowdsource things -- Guitar Hero 5 owners in the Joystiq Biomass™, please let us know which 35 of Guitar Hero World Tour's 86 tracks are playable! Our inbox is always open!

Guitar Hero World Tour:

"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" – Beastie Boys
"Dammit" – Blink-182
"Livin' on a Prayer" – Bon Jovi
"Sweet Home Alabama (Live)" Lynyrd Skynyrd
"L'Via L'Viaquez" – The Mars Volta
"About a Girl (Unplugged)" – Nirvana
"Spiderwebs" – No Doubt
"Re-Education (Through Labor)" – Rise Against
"Do It Again" – Steely Dan
"Demolition Man" – Sting
"Love Spreads" – The Stone Roses
"Santeria" – Sublime
"Are You Gonna Go My Way" – Lenny Kravitz
"Band On The Run" – Wings
"Heartbreaker" – Pat Benatar
"Hollywood Nights" - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
"Lazy Eye" - Silversun Pickups
"Never Too Late" – The Answer
"Obstacle 1" – Interpol
"One Armed Scissor" – At the Drive-In
"One Way or Another" – Blondie
"Our Truth" – Lacuna Coil
"Overkill" – Motorhead
"Shiver" – Coldplay
"Soul Doubt" – NOFX
"Stranglehold" – Ted Nugent
"The Joker" – The Steve Miller Band
"The Kill" – 30 Seconds To Mars
"Up Around The Bend" – Creedence Clearwater Revival
"Everlong" – Foo Fighters
"The Middle" – Jimmy Eat World
"Today" – Smashing Pumpkins
"Toy Boy" – Stuck in the Sound
"You're Gonna Say Yeah!" – Hushpuppies
"Stillborn" – Black Label Society

Guitar Hero Smash Hits:

"Caught In A Mosh" – Anthrax
"Cult Of Personality" – Living Colour
"Free Bird" – Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Freya" – The Sword
"Heart-Shaped Box" – Nirvana
"Hey You" – The Exies
"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" – Pat Benatar
"I Love Rock 'N Roll" – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
"I Wanna Rock" – Twisted Sister
"Message In A Bottle" – The Police
"Miss Murder" – AFI
"Monkey Wrench" – Foo Fighters
"No One Knows" – Queens Of The Stone Age
"Nothin' But A Good Time" – Poison
"Play With Me" – Extreme
"Psychobilly Freakout" – Reverend Horton Heat
"Rock And Roll All Nite" – Kiss
"Shout At The Devil" – Mötley Crüe
"The Trooper" – Iron Maiden
"Woman" – Wolfmother
"Yyz" – Rush

Tags: activision, digital-download, dlc, guitar-hero, guitar-hero-5, guitar-hero-smash-hits, guitar-hero-world-tour, neversoft, smash-hits, song-importing, usa-today

Related From Joystiq

Activision's Guitar Hero CEO replaced
6 days ago
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine says 'high-level' talks with Neversoft, Activision could result in ... something
21 days ago
Behind the turntables of DJ Hero
27 days ago

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

CTC XBL-supapaypamawio PSN-ctclaw @ Sep 1st 2009 7:33PM

Wow, even the biggest GH fanboys have to admit that this is an epic letdown. You have to have a unique code and pay some money and you only get 35 songs??

CTC XBL-supapaypamawio PSN-ctclaw @ Sep 1st 2009 7:44PM

Anyone else have the feeling that the 35 songs that can export are going to be shitty ones?

False @ Sep 1st 2009 7:52PM

No kidding. Imagine my surprise when I found this out firsthand.

Oh well. The GH5 setlist itself is decent enough. But that is $3.50 I'll never get back.

Martin @ Sep 1st 2009 8:18PM

I was pretty pissed that Hotel California didn't make the trip, but at the same time I thought most of the World Tour setlist was pretty shitty to start with. Santaria made it, which is awesome. I'll wait for a list before I put down another $3.50 on Smash Hits licensing though, just in case.

I know TTFAF will make it. They'll license that shit for a nickel.

shibathedog @ Sep 1st 2009 8:34PM

What is the point of this? Why not just put the GHWT disc in when you want to play those songs and GH5 disc in when you want the new ones. Problem solved. Plus haven't you played the WT tracks to death by now?

CTC XBL-supapaypamawio PSN-ctclaw @ Sep 1st 2009 8:48PM

What's the point in having an iPod? You can just change CD's whenever you want to listen to something else...

The Baron @ Sep 1st 2009 9:17PM

What's the point of having your fridge and your cooker in the same room? You could just walk right across the house between them.

Brodo @ Sep 1st 2009 9:19PM

Im one of those people who used to defended GH but since rockband 2 was released I realize how much better RB really is. My brother got GH WT for Christmas and that game is garbage IMO. I dont like most of the songs on it, I dont like the drum tracks and how you activate star power for the drums, and downloadable content in way better on RB.
Anyone who hasnt switched to RB needs to do so ASAP and stop wasting money are more of these GH games.
But whatever, at this rate GH wont have any more bands to make games out of by 2011.

bobartig @ Sep 1st 2009 10:48PM

@Brodo: I'm hugely in favor of RB over GH, but with the "Beatles" title, RB is just giving up on their inter-operability, creating a segregated experience with a segregated track store to boot, I bought HMX's games, and I bought their kit because I agreed with the way that they do things, and now they're giving me a big fat finger in the face. So, even though I know that RockBand: Beatles is not exactly a sequel to RB2, the way it works out practically is this:

GHWT -> GH5: 35 songs carry over, or 35 songs per game change in series.
RB1 -> RB2 -> RB:B: 55 songs carry over, or 27.5 songs per game change in series, and I'm back to having two rhythm games I'm playing instead of one cohesive musical ecosystem. They just took their biggest, most salient advantage, and threw it away. I can't wait for RB 3 to see how much dumber HMX can manage to make it.

B3astofthe3ast @ Sep 1st 2009 10:59PM

You seem to forget that LEGO RBs tracks will be exportable as well.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Sep 1st 2009 11:04PM

bobartig,

If you want someone to blame for Beatles Rock Band being independant, blame Apple. As shown with Lego Rock Band, Harmonix wants to make the tracks interchangable. It's just that, well fuck... considering how locked down stuff is, consider yourself lucky we're getting Beatles at all.

alinos @ Sep 2nd 2009 3:32AM

massive let down here i would much rather they just released them all seperatly as DLC anyway maybe then they might put out as much DLC as RB does(which to me is the only upside of RB) i suppose there problem is not only buying license fee but also building the new features into the tracks

luckily that list seems to have most of the best but id still like all the smash hits songs on it i mean they are after all meant to be the cream of the crop seems stupid to have so few

Brysonial the Bison @ Sep 2nd 2009 5:00PM

well well well guitar hero dissapontment again hmmmmmmmmmm

GHWT didn't have too many good song i mean any good songs activision puts in guitar hero harmonix will just put up as downloadable content

ROCK BAND FTW

VaultBoy @ Sep 2nd 2009 5:02PM

I am disappointed, but word is that they are releasing more later on so I'll hold on to that hope. For now I am having fun with GH5 and enjoying it for what it is. Besides. I own WT so there is no rush for the importation to happen. I can always just throw that one in. I am liking it so far.

BxGT @ Sep 1st 2009 7:35PM

And people defend guitar hero why?
oh well back to playing bat country in rock band.

Jrod @ Sep 1st 2009 7:51PM

I defend them because I enjoy the games. New games = new songs/content.

False @ Sep 1st 2009 7:54PM

I defend them for their superior drumming system and the fact that, yes, Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero can co-exist in my library and the world won't collapse on itself.

Yes, I did buy my copy this morning and will now proceed to line up for RB: Beatles next week.

BxGT @ Sep 1st 2009 7:54PM

Well i dont need a new one for content, i get it on a weekly basis( much pun intended)

VaultICEE @ Sep 1st 2009 7:55PM

I think Guitar Hero's Expert + mode is a good idea, but Guitar Hero's drums are awkward to play.

TrojanGuy @ Sep 1st 2009 7:56PM

Or you could just buy Rock Band 2 and have lots of new content/songs every week. Not to mention the THOUSANDS of songs that will soon be available on the Rock Band Network. News stories like this really make me happy I've given up on the GH franchise.

Gewgaw @ Sep 1st 2009 8:05PM

Agree, I don't know why people think GH is a better way to play rhythm/music games. Harmonix got it right when they actually cared enough to think about how people would be playing these games... it's more like how people listen to music. Having a library of music to play, with different genres and the whole library available, that's the way to go.

Whenever I have Rock Band parties, the crowd votes on the songs to play. This would be extremely awkward and slow-paced if we had to pop in a different disc each time we wanted to go from Metallica to No Doubt, then back again.

Jrod @ Sep 1st 2009 8:06PM

Why am I being down voted? The guy asked a question and I answered honestly. I didn't bash anything or any other game.

I enjoy Guitar Hero because new discs = new content/songs and that's all I need in this game series. I don't expect some kind of interface innovation every series. The game is where you play plastic instruments to music. All they need to do for me is to keep the music coming. I don't care if they do it through new discs or DLC,as long as they do it.

Quinton @ Sep 1st 2009 8:15PM

You lord bat country like it's a good song.

Quinton @ Sep 1st 2009 8:16PM

So PLEASE, if youre going to do that over an 'exclusive' song, pick a better one.

Taco_Hell @ Sep 1st 2009 8:18PM

You should care, because your paying 60 bucks for songs that could easily be in DLC, and content that could be patched. While you could just get Rock Band and never have to worry about if so-and-so songs will work with the next GH and get a great amount of songs weekly. Not to mention the over saturation that GH is making.

kornchild2002 @ Sep 1st 2009 9:05PM

If you call "Bat Country" content that is actually playable. The least you could have done was reference a Megadeth song or something along those lines. Not some terrible, terrible, terrible band that comes out with songs that aren't even worth the torrent download time.

The Baron @ Sep 1st 2009 9:19PM

I've never enjoyed Megadeth in RB, and this from a huge fan of them outside of it. Blast beats and insanely fast chord structures don't make for fun rhythm games.

DWells55 @ Sep 1st 2009 11:37PM

Whoa, Bat Country and Guerrilla Radio? Awesome!

DWells55 @ Sep 1st 2009 11:44PM

@kornchild:
You listen to Korn, therefore you lose your right to call other bands terrible.

VaultBoy @ Sep 2nd 2009 1:32PM

The level of douchery displayed by RB fanboys is ridiculous. You don't hear the GH fans getting this up in arms about every little thing RB does. Gratz, you will be playing the SAME FUCKING GAME until next year. Well done, I will too. But I am still open to the idea of playing SOMETHING ELSE within the SAME FUCKING GENRE that offers GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS and SUPERIOR EQUIPMENT. I play RB with my GH instruments because they ACTUALLY FUCKING WORK and aren't FLIMSY PIECES OF SHIT. Now that I've said that you RB fanboys need to get over this hive-mind thing. It's not healthy. Now feel free to down-vote this because it dislays profanity, but more dangerous, a dissenting opinion.

Kinsey @ Sep 1st 2009 7:38PM

I think I'm done with this franchise, It's just gonna get confusing of what DLC is for what game, what DLC is compatible or not with how many of the games, And then theres Band Hero coming, and knows how many more band related GH's will be coming .....

Oh GOD is this what A Migraine FEELS like?!?!

Special Agent Steve @ Sep 1st 2009 7:46PM

I think it's what thinking feels like.
The more you do it, the less it hurts.

BxGT @ Sep 1st 2009 7:51PM

Tell her to get off then. My insurance doesn't cover that.

Blank-Mage @ Sep 1st 2009 7:54PM

There's always going to be some discomfort, but that's just part of you realizing how meaningless it all is. If it gets bad, cut down on your thinking a bit and watch a Micheal Bay movie.

sic @ Sep 1st 2009 8:25PM

I pre-ordered the game purely so I could export the tracklists from GHWT and GH:Hits and have them all playable at one time without swapping discs.

They have just lost my pre-order (I'm in the UK where the game is due next week).

Chris @ Sep 1st 2009 10:00PM

Agreed, the ONLY thing getting me to possibly buy this is the free van halen...and even then I'm not sure why. Rock Band 2 + DLC is enough for me, its far better anyway. The online sucks though, I have high hopes for RB3's feature list. I'm hoping for some double bass options. GH has some great features, but the support for RB drums and cymbals sucks.

WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Sep 1st 2009 10:11PM

For some reason I think I fuckin' love Canada now.

Lukeyo @ Sep 1st 2009 7:38PM

They must be horrible with licensing. Rock Band had what, 3 songs that couldn't be exported to 2? Not to mention ALL the DLC was compatible.

I've been watching the comment wars for a while now, and I think this settles it for me. I was unsure about buying GH5, but Guitar Hero has put it in my poop hole for the last time.

Lukeyo @ Sep 1st 2009 7:47PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_downloadable_songs_for_the_Rock_Band_series

Did some digging, it was 3 songs.
1) Enter Sandman - Because GH: Metallica was on the way.
2) Paranoid - Wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with Ozzy's inclusion in GH: World Tour.
3) Run to the Hills - Which just recently was given new life as part of an Iron Maiden DLC pack.

Leobebes (BDF: Braid Defence Force) @ Sep 1st 2009 8:11PM

It's because Kotick is a cheap, penny pinching, sourface fool.

sony boy @ Sep 1st 2009 8:41PM

no offense, but your avatar looks like shaggy on weed...XD

Lukeyo @ Sep 1st 2009 8:47PM

So you're telling me that Shaggy was ever not under the influence?

The Baron @ Sep 1st 2009 9:22PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2namHzxp6Sk

T @ Sep 1st 2009 9:59PM

Yeah, I don't get what's up with the partial update....Activision couldn't be more forward thinking that this was done by the time the game came out? RB was exportable less than a year after it was released. As in every song that was going to come over was ready to come over.

This gives me ZERO faith that once the next GH title comes out that any of the content I've exported from the past will be compatible a second time.

Mike @ Sep 1st 2009 10:39PM

Harmonics from the start built Rock Band just as much as a platform as a game. Naturally, they honed their licensing skills knowing that this would be integral to their goal. Red Octane, not so good with the licensing.

Ignatius @ Sep 1st 2009 11:10PM

Don't forget the awesome AC/DC Fan Pack, which was, with a code included, copyable to HDD and therefore, you could have those in the game too without having to switch disks.

I hope that Lego Rock Band will either have the $5 for all the songs or at least a code to download them to your drive so you don't have to use different disks. Rock Band 2 is more of a platform now than anything.

Bearxor @ Sep 1st 2009 11:34PM

In Activison's defense *shudders*, Rock Band did only export 45 songs off the first game disc.

It's probably a lot harder to re-work out licensing for 80-something songs. If we're comparing number of songs, the GHWT export is only 10 behind the original rock band for $3.50.

Let's say they work out another 35-40 songs from GHSH (i don't know how many are on the disc for that one), then you're looking at 70 or more songs for $7.00, compared to $5.00 for 45 from Rock Band 1.

And Harmonix has also said that the GH:Metallica deal didn't effect Harmonix's licensing with Metallica. They were supposed to come out with a 20-something song download pack and I'd kind of like to know where it's at. I like to throw the RB1 disc in once in a blue moon and play Enter Sandman.

Kyera @ Sep 2nd 2009 1:03AM

To be fair to Activision, 35/86 is garbage compared to 45/48.

Also, I don't know where this 20 song Metallica pack rumour came from, but it keeps popping up with different numbers. Harmonix said GH:M didn't impact their plans, but they never provided a number, tracks, or anything.