The Guitar Controller Conundrum

It is common knowledge that the Guitar Hero (and like) games require an investment beyond what most games require. Not only do you have to purchase the game at full price, but you also have to fork over the extra cash to play the game properly via a fancy guitar controller (unless you are some gamepad freak).

And since most gamers have limited fundings, the question of recycling guitar controllers has become a serious question of late. With Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock already out and Rock Band less than a month away, many Guitar Hero or potential Rock Band owners want to know if they can recycle their controllers for use with any or all of the games. I mean, it makes sense doesn’t it? When you go out and buy a gamepad, you generally expect it to work with every game. It’s something console gamers have taken for granted over the years.

With that said, IGN recently took opportunity to extensively test each controller among the various games: Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, & Rock Band. The following are what IGN has found thus far:

• GH2 Xplorer controller (360) works with everything.
• GH3 Les Paul works with everything with one catch: it does not work with the PS2 GH2 game via PS3’s backward compatability feature.
• Neither GH controller support activation of Rock Band’s special effects.
• The Rock Band Fender Stratocaster does not work with GH2 or GH3 (note: 360 only tested so far).

For the Xbox 360, I can personally attest that both Guitar Hero controllers (Les Paul & Xplorer) work with both games without a hitch.

So it seems that even though the Rock Band game will accept all Guitar Hero controllers (to a certain degree), its own controller breaks backward software compatibility. A Harmonix rep. has come forward and stated that their controller hardware work on an open standard that all are welcome to adopt. What this means is that we’ll need a software update for the Guitar Hero games to support it. Activision have yet to comment.

As I expect, most gamers will be spending $150+ for the Rock Band bundle come November. The only ones getting left out in the cold are those Rock Band adopters going after Guitar Hero standalone games afterwards. Fortunately, it appears as though anyone owning a Guitar Hero controller right now can opt for a $59.99 Rock Band game-only purchase and rock away; Although, how much fun playing the game by yourself is questionable. As we found out earlier, the Rock Band bundle will be the only means of purchasing any of the instruments this year.

Now, the question I have for any Harmonix or Activision rep. is why the wireless controllers are not cross-console compatible? Since each console operates on their own specific RF & transmission parameters, it would seem trivial to tweak the hardware to support all the major consoles. Yeah yeah, I know Microsoft are charging royalties for any hardware using their RF. It’s still a worthy question.

Via IGN