Harmonix, MTV Games, and EA have announced that standalone peripherals for the hit music game, RockBand, are indeed coming to store shelves soon. A Drum Kit, priced at $79.99, will arrive first on February 12. Later, on April 1st, a Fender Stratocaster Guitar Controller will become available for $59.99. Unfortunately, this means PS3 owners still have to wait a little over two months before they can assembly a full band without dropping another $170 on a second RockBand bundle just for the extra guitar. Of course, then that whole mess between Activision and Harmonix will be rendered almost moot.

Via Press Release

It seems GamingToday was right on the money about Activision’s true motivations behind the problems with releasing a patch to allow Guitar Hero III guitar controllers to be used with Rock Band.

“Unfortunately for Rock Band users, Harmonix has been unwilling to discuss an agreement that will allow us to provide that option in a manner that maintains the high standards people have come to expect from Activision,” company spokesperson Maryanne Lataif told The Boston Globe.“We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology,” she said.

Harmonix, which claims to have already created a patch to allow controller compatibility, says that it only wants what’s best for gamers.

“We are really and truly not looking at this from the financial standpoint,” said company spokeswoman Spencer Saltonstall. “We are looking at this from the consumer standpoint.”

She adds that there are 7,000 Chinese workers assembling guitar controllers for Rock Band at this moment and consumers can expect them to be on shelves next month.

Ironically the Xbox 360 version of the game which is compatible with the Guitar Hero III controller has only sold 68,000 copies. The PS3 version of Rock Band has sold over 247,000 copies.

“I think they’re all sods,” PS3 RockBand owner Tom Bramwell told GamesIndustry.biz sister site Eurogamer.net.

“The irony is that I only bought the Guitar Hero III PS3 controller so I could use it with Rock Band instead of the Fender Stratocaster bundled with the Harmonix game itself. In other words, I extended my custom with Activision in order to do a thing it is now prohibiting out of a desire to prevent itself losing my custom.”

via GamesIndustry.biz

I’m sure all you PS3 Rock Band owners have been following the progress of the proposed patch to allow Guitar Hero 3 guitars to be used with Rock Band. If you are, I’m sure you saw the report that Harmonix had announced that Activision was blocking the release of that patch.

Activision has now fired their own salvo in this battle, denying that they have any part in blocking the patch, and calling the Harmonix statement ‘misleading.’ You can find this announcement in the support section of Activision’s website, and the full text appears below.

To Music Gaming Fans:

The recent announcement by MTV Games/Viacom’s Harmonix division that Activision is blocking Sony from releasing a patch and their plea to enable Rock Band software to work with Guitar Hero hardware paints a very misleading picture.

In fact, Harmonix and its parent company MTV Games/Viacom recently declined Activision’s offer to reach an agreement that would allow the use of Guitar Hero guitar controllers with Rock Band. We have been and remain open to discussions with Harmonix and MTV Games/Viacom about the use of our technology in Rock Band. Unfortunately for Rock Band users, in this case Harmonix and MTV Games/Viacom are unwilling to discuss an agreement with Activision.

Activision’s top priority is to provide consumers with a seamless marriage of best-in-class hardware and software. We are focusing our efforts on innovating hardware and software that are designed to work together, work flawlessly and provide an enjoyable gaming experience.

Best regards,

Activision

So, what IS the truth in this situation? Who knows. All I know is that I am still without a second Rock Band guitar, and I am not all that happy about it. Hopefully, these two companies can settle their differences and work together to create a patch that will fix the compatibility issue once and for all. After all, letting the GH 3 Les Paul work with Rock Band owuld be a bonus for Activision, as PS3 owners who don’t already have it would most likely pick it up because they could not only play GH 3, but they’d also gain a second Rock Band guitar.

In a second read-through of this announcement, I have formulated a theory. It almost sounds like Harmonix wrote the patch submitted it, and then Activision said, “Fine, you can use it, but we expect an agreement that includes compensation for us.” While I don’t know if this is the case, it would certainly fit the tone of the statements from both companies. Until we have more information, it’s all just idle speculation.

More to come as it develops.

According to Harmonix, Activision is blocking the release of a patch that would enable their game, Rock Band, from working with the PS3 Guitar Hero III controllers. Apparently, they developed a patch, which was approved by Sony for release on December 4th. However the release of the patch has been stopped due to objections from Activision. Currently, the PS3 Rock Band guitar is only available in bundle, meaning a consumer would have to buy a whole new bundle just to get the full four-player experience. This is an especially strange move by Activision considering the Xbox 360 versions of their controller work just fine with Rock Band. Harmonix released this statement on the issue:

As we have said in the past, Harmonix and MTV Games believe in an open standard philosophy of hardware and game compatibility. We think that there should be interoperability between music instrument controllers across all music games. This is clearly in the best interest of consumers, game developers and console manufacturers and will only help to grow the music game genre as well as inspire innovation and creativity.

Two weeks ago, Harmonix created a software patch for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that allowed for guitar compatibility and support for third party peripherals, including enabling use of Activision’s Guitar Hero III controller with Rock Band. The compatibility patch was submitted, approved and had been scheduled for release by Sony on Tuesday, December 4. Unfortunately, Activision objected to the compatibility patch’s release. The patch remains with Sony, but we have been told that it will unfortunately not be released due to Activision’s continued objection.

As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band. We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so.

We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others will also adopt this philosophy.

Via Game|Life

Reports have been flying across the web claiming that Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii plays in mono sound only. If true, this could be a huge disaster for Activision and Nintendo. Guitar Hero III is supposed to support Dolby Pro Logic II quality sound. I have not been able to verify this rumor, considering I have only sampled the gameplay on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. Single-channel mono sound is simply not acceptable in the year 2007, particularly on a game where the sound is probably the single most important aspect. It appears that many gamers in the Guitar Hero forums are reporting the identical issue. Hopefully, this is just a bug in the game that can be fixed with a patch. If not, the value of this game on the Wii drops to nothing in my opinion. Guitar Hero without proper surround sound is like car without tires.

Guitar Hero Community Website

It seems Activision finally gave us the news we’ve been dying for. An official release date for Call of Duty 4. Gamers worldwide…yes, I said worldwide will be able to get their hands on this title on November, 5th on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

If you were lucky enough to get into the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta, then you’ll know that the game is pretty much complete, but just needs a bit of tweaking to ensure we all get a smooth, patchless experience when it hits retail.

Call of Duty 4 is also going to face some stiff competition this holiday season, but if you read my past hands-on article, you’ll know that it will probably be on everyone’s “MUST GET” list.

Via Press Release

You remember that Activision conference call we told you about on Friday? Well, there’s some pretty good news for ET: Quake Wars fans that dropped in there.

The multiplayer first-person shooter is expected to launch in the July-September 2007 time frame. Now, you should keep in mind that this is Activision talking, not id Software. As anyone familiar with id will tell you, it won’t be released until it’s ready. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it usually means that we get a well-polished product, rather than one that needs a dozen patches to get there.

If you haven’t checked out ET: QW yet, it’s Strogg vs. GDF in an online shootout on PC, PS3, and XBox 360. For all sorts of trailers, you check out the FileFront game page here.