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

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

Reader Comments (172)

If you're pissed off enough about this, write a snail-mail letter. Bitching on the internet has all the policy impact of a whistle in a hurricane.

However, if enough people take the time to compose and mail an address to their corporate HQ (see below) saying something to the effect of "I'm switching all my dollars to your competitor until you live up to your product's advertising" then someone will be held responsible for the policy decision.

Activision Incorporated
Attn: Customer Relations
3100 Ocean Park Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90405

bah, "mail a letter to their corporate HQ (address below)"

BTW - here's the text of the letter I'm sending:

Dear Activision Decision-Makers,

I recently purchased Guitar Hero 5 based on your company's heavily advertised feature that GH5 could import the tracks from both World Tour and Smash Hits. I own the former and *had* planned to purchase the latter. Now I find out that fewer than 50% of the World Tour tracks can be imported? To me this skates the line of false advertisement. While you never promised how many tracks were able to be imported, this “functionality” is stunted, at best. Your competitor set a far higher bar in this regard. Are you hoping to resell the tracks to us in future “Smash Hits”? If this is how you treat customers, my future purchasing dollars will go to Rock Band.

I thought I was the only one surprised about this shitty move by Actisoft/Nevervision. But apparently I am not alone.

No matter how much you want to defend the GH franchise... moves like this make it look pretty bad. Giving partial information before launch setting up false hopes:

- You can import DLC, GHWT and GH:SH songs into GH5. We are now forward thinking! You only need to pay a small fee once and your previous games will work great with GH5. You will just need to redownload songs but that's no big pain, is it?

And then at the nick of time giving us the sad truth:

- Oh you tought you could play AAAALL the content from the two previous games? He he, funny thing you see... you will only be able to pay a third of GHWT and sometime in the fall, about only 1/2 of SH. We are working on getting more songs available to you sometime in the future... but heck! DLC made the cut! So why not go ahead and make up for the difference by buying a few DLC songs?

no Tool!!!??? nIn

O yeah, and for everyone that isn't poor and Irish, just buy both Rock Band 2 and GH5, and you can't import on Wii, you jerks.

What's Irish got to do with it?

VaultBoy, its a TF2 joke from valve

Oh. Ok.

BTW, Activision will be adding more importable songs later, this is like the Basic Pack

If that's true, that's nice and all. But when Rock Band 2 came out, the first Rock Band was ALL ready to go (save for three tracks). What's the point of releasing importable songs in waves? Why can't we just have it all now? Especially when you consider how long the development cycle typically is?

And as expected the ones I would REALLY want to play aren't even part of the mix. Good job Acti. Way to drop the ball...Again. You're lucky the game stands on its own and doesn't NEED this feature, but if you are going to push a feature, why not at least TRY to let it live up to the hype? Please? Just this once?

Before reading all of your hate comments, has anyone here actually PLAYED the game? It's great!

I have it, it's pretty good.

It seems that now it is usually only RB fans who post about guitar hero. The new menu system is great, have never been so pleased with a music game before.

I'm enjoying it. And I'm even going to be fare and check out Beatles Rock Band next week because I also enjoyed the demo I played for that. Ooooh. Somebody liking both games. So EVIL!

inside joke in Team Fortress 2

Maybe because Rock Band only had to make Rock Band 2, apart that almost never changed between the games.

Meanwhile, they had to make Metallica, Van Halen, Smash Hits itself, Modern Hits and Band Hero. And they needed time to convert the tracks and relicense them, and it was something more than 130 tracks, not 55 like RB1.

They also had to make the game itself and license the songs already in-game and the WT DLC.

Most of these ppl don't need a reason to hate guitar hero. They just do. It's sad really because its like the loser of the fight criticizing the winner's strategy. Look at the raw numbers. GH outsells RB. Period. Does that make one better than the other, no but they are both making a fuck ton of money so they must be doing something right.

I hope people realize you just have to buy the games you like, I'm not buying Band Hero and some friend is gonna lend me his Smash Hits code.

(looks at GH5, already brought the game)

"You know you're screwed when Beatles comes out
until I get my Ozzy AND THE OTHER HALF of good songs, I'll just play you out of spite and to Digital cobain make a ass of itself"

i enjoy the gh games and the only thing that rb has over gh is the dlc and for this fact rb doesnt have to go through as much red tape as gh does for liscencing for songs. i was reading a aritcal in game informer about the rb beatles and i read that rb was partners with mtv so damn there ya go. gh will hopefully get some clout for getting some better dlc i dont wanna see 5 european track packs in gh5, i love gh drums and expert plus is as real as it gets.

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

Reader Comments (172)

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 9:00AM tensider said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 9:01AM tensider said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 9:04AM tensider said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 10:41AM waldo15 said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 2:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 3:38PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:08PM VaultBoy said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 5:01PM SitriStahl said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 7:14PM VaultBoy said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 3:41PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:56PM False said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:07PM VaultBoy said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:40PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:54PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 7:05PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 7:01PM VaultBoy said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 4:53PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 6:27PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 2nd 2009 7:12PM VaultBoy said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2009 12:10PM Xpike said

Posted: Sep 3rd 2009 12:26PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 10th 2009 7:22PM (Unverified) said

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