Harmonix’s New Title — Fantasia: Music Evolved
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If the next generation is not backwards compatible, could it even be called RB4? They shouldn’t even make a sequel to Rock Band. It should be a new game with multiple options. I call it Rock Blitz Central. Combine all 3 games into 1, so that people can play an instrument, use the controller or just dance to the music. Revamp the ugly Pro version of guitar. Get more characters going on the screen, and have the notes fly at you Blitz style with a more interactive background for dancing and stuff. Then once they release that and screw up, they can make a sequel called RBC2 and it will be the greatest!
Let’s say they actually have licensed all those songs for “Any all rhythm game for any and all platforms” (which is pure fantasy, in my mind). Let’s say they decide to create a system to tie your old account to a new account on the new console. Let’s also say that the new game has NO new featers requiring the song files to be updated or that they will go through all the 4,000+ songs and update them.
Now, with that said, why would they actually let you have those songs for free on the new game? How does that make any business sense? If they ever decide to create a new game in the Rock Band franchise, they need to make money in order for it to be feasible, so it’s only normal that we need to buy any song for that game.
The exact same rationale could have been applied to RB2/RB3, but it wasn’t, and Harmonix changed the DLC paradigm by ensuring compatibility. I think they’d sell far more discs if people could port their libraries, and then brought new content to entice people to purchase it instead of selling them the old stuff twice (see: RB3 Version drama).
The exact same rationale could have been applied to RB2/RB3, but it wasn’t, and Harmonix changed the DLC paradigm by ensuring compatibility. I think they’d sell far more discs if people could port their libraries, and then brought new content to entice people to purchase it instead of selling them the old stuff twice (see: RB3 Version drama).There’s no doubt they would sell more discs if people could port over their libraries. They would sell even more discs if they gave away the entire 4,000+ songs library to anyone how buys the new game. But selling the discs alone is note the business model. Or at least not now. Maybe by the time a new Rock Band related title is out, margins for the game itself are huge and those for the DLC are puny. But as we stand, DLC has been the driving force. And remember, this is said considering they don’t need to relicense or rework the files, which is pure science fiction (proof of the first is that they are relicensing songs even to sell them under the “old” Rock Band umbrella): if you add those costs, it makes even less business sense.
Plus, I disagree on the idea that this would be the same as developing a new iteration. The first game in a franchise for a new platform needs to capitalize on the new console, which means a far higher developing costs than those needed to do a new iteration of a game on the same platform.
Philosophically, finally, I don’t think it’s right to punish businesses for their merits. Nobody, I think, would ever object to any FIFA, NBA, etc. game selling as DLC players and teams that was available in a previous version. The reason why people would object to Harmonix doing so is that they built a system so good that it’s almost as good as it can be.
DLC purchases from loyal fans have been the driving force.
You are going to alienate a lot of people — including people like me, with roughly 2,200 legitimately purchased tracks and customs on top — if the content does not port forward and you attempt to sell me the same tracks a second time. Carrying forward the existing catalogue (if not offering it for sale again, necessarily) would garner huge amounts of goodwill and entice me to continue buying additional new content.
It’s not like there are only five thousand songs in existence, and thus the pool of potential revenue-generators is limited. If they can bring some of the content back for resale, great, but they should aim to support existing, already-purchased content to keep the “whales” (e.g. DLC whores) on board. You’re going to lose far more than you’ll gain by abandoning or rebooting your platform, at this point.
fwiw, speaking to your last paragraph, plenty of people object to EA repackaging the same content under a new logo and selling it every year. The issue is many more people continue to buy it anyway. Of course, that’s a new disc, and people generally didn’t invest thousands of dollars in previous iterations.
Game looks interesting. I would probably buy it to support Harmonix even if it ends up not being that great. I’m hopeful though.
I hope we can have our old DLC on the new console. I’ve got something like 1200+ tracks and it would be a bummer to not get to use them in the eventual Rock Band 4(if it even happens).
I would even pay a small fee if it would be enough to make it happen. I liked the idea earlier about it being all games in one. Dance+band. I think it could be feasible IMO. Two dancers, a guitar, and drums? Yeah. Sign me up. It would be THE party game.
…it would make customs quite a chore though.
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