Harmonix announces new instrument licensing deals for Rock Band
- May 08, 2007 10:26 AM PST
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Rock Band asks of you: can you rock out like Jimi? Well, at the very least, you can play with a Strat, thanks to a new licensing deal orchestrated between Fender and Harmonix.
By Frederick Cannon
Harmonix has revealed a number of details today regarding their upcoming multi-instrumental music-game Rock Band, including the announcement of an exclusive licensing deal with Fender Musical Instruments. The Fender Stratocaster, for years synonymous with some of the greatest rock guitarists in music history, will be converted into a mock guitar peripheral for the title.
"Our approach to the design of the Rock Band peripherals has been driven by a desire to give players as authentic a musical experience as possible," announced Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos. "The Stratocaster is arguably the most recognizable and iconic model of guitar in all of rock and roll, so it seemed like the natural choice. It's also just a gorgeous instrument. Additionally, the folks at Fender immediately understood what we're trying to accomplish with this game and were enthusiastic about partnering with us in the service of that vision."
However, the Stratocaster guitar won't be the only piece of guitar equipment rigged up for the title, as Harmonix has revealed that the game will feature synthesizers by the Roland Corporation and guitar effects pedals from the BOSS brand.
Although these new controllers will have features not seen in similar rock-based music games, a recent interview conducted between Rigopulos and Gamespot reveals that the guitar-based segment of Rock Band will still be compatible with a competing peripheral, the Guitar Hero guitar.
"The team at Harmonix feels that interoperability between various music games and peripherals is in the best interest of the gamers," Rigopulos explained, "so yes, we do intend to support the existing Guitar Hero guitar controllers, as well as other third-party guitar controllers, to the greatest degree possible in Rock Band."
As for whether gamers would be able to user the Rock Band guitar in Guitar Hero, Rigopulos was uncertain, but hopes that this will be the case.
"We hope so, because as I said before, we think this kind of interoperability is what gamers really want," he said. "We're designing the Rock Band controller to conform to each console's open standards, so from a technical standpoint, it should work fine with Guitar Hero or other music games that may appear. However, this is ultimately a question that only Activision can answer, because it's entirely up to them which hardware they choose to support. Certainly, if Activision wishes to support the Rock Band guitar controller in Guitar Hero, we'd be happy to work with them to make it easy for them to do so."
A specific release date for the game hasn't been announced yet, but as GamePro mentioned previously, the title will be released for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 systems sometime during this year's holiday season.
