Guitar Hero and Rock Band to be sold off?

[KoopaScooper]

I just read about it on the Wii News Channel.
Turns out Activision and Viacom weren't making enough monies, so they're selling the franchises.
Someone post a link to an article so I can put it in the OP.

[Ad Bot]

[StarDust]

I bet they both made only half they money they needed.

They just need to combine, and they'll make it all.

Band hero FTW.

[KoopaScooper]

I bet they both made only half they money they needed.

Yeah, apparently the Guitar Hero franchise was losing money because of (somewhat) durable instruments.

[Marcem]

Err, Activision didn't make rock band, harmonix as a whole is being sold though.

[Masterlegodude]

harmonix as a whole is being sold though.

Wasn't Harmonix bought by some not-well-known music company or something?

[KoopaScooper]

Wasn't Harmonix bought by some not-well-known music company or something?

Viacom.

Err, Activision didn't make rock band

hurr

[Greekgeeker]

Harmonix was bought by an investment firm in December, and Activision just canceled the Guitar Hero franchise earlier today. Music games as a whole haven’t been doing well recently.

[M]

I love the forget out of Guitar Hero, while it was getting old there's still stuffloads of potential for it.

If they decided to release a program to officially support people creating and importing custom songs and notesets (this can be done via Homebrew but it's apparently a bitch) I'd pay for it.

There's an article about it here.

Something that I noticed when I bought Warriors of Rock for 360 is also the controller is... well, a piece of stuff. The build quality is solid enough but by god it's a horrible thing to use. No touch strip, the trigger is loud as hell (it's audible over my stereo when my stereo is up loud enough for me to be legally arrested as I live in a block of apartments), the neck is a horrid shape and cramps my hand, and the whole thing is a terrible length and shape - if I'm standing up, I can have it down low in which case my right arm will be overstretched and mess up my shoulder, or higher up where my left elbow will cramp (as well as the hand). If I'm sitting down the strum bar will always be too far to one side of my body. It's just terrible in every way and unfortunately I don't have any previous controllers for 360.[/rant]

Still, as I said there's still potential in it if they'll relinquish just that little bit of commercial control. I don't see why so many publishers are against community content creation. Hell, they could set up a community DLC store where the people who upload songs get a cut of the profits from its sales, and then bam - new content keeps people happy, content creation means people can make a bit of money from it and you're making a bit off people who make more content. Everybody wins, right?

[zackin5]

Still, as I said there's still potential in it if they'll relinquish just that little bit of commercial control. I don't see why so many publishers are against community content creation. Hell, they could set up a community DLC store where the people who upload songs get a cut of the profits from its sales, and then bam - new content keeps people happy, content creation means people can make a bit of money from it and you're making a bit off people who make more content. Everybody wins, right?

Not really, There's a chance some big time record company will sue because someone uploaded one of their songs.

[tails]

I love the forget out of Guitar Hero, while it was getting old there's still stuffloads of potential for it.

If they decided to release a program to officially support people creating and importing custom songs and notesets (this can be done via Homebrew but it's apparently a bitch) I'd pay for it.

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

[TheScout]

Guitar Gero sucks, RB should improve it by a ton.

[Mr.Interceptor]

Guitar Gero sucks, RB should improve it by a ton.

[Masterlegodude]

I did not notice that typo until Interceptor posted that

[Sirrus]

Maybe people finally realized it isn't cool to play a plastic guitar.

[M]

Maybe people finally realized it isn't cool to play a plastic guitar.

Now we just need to wait for people to realize that we never thought it was cool or that it was anything like playing a real guitar, just that it was loads of fun and that being able to complete certain challenges is hard enough to warrant being proud of it.

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

Apparently it supports the guitar controllers now, that's cool. I hadn't checked on it in ages due to not having an adapter for PS2 controllers at the time (whereas I now have a PS3 controller laying around and its USB receiver) They could still milk a bit more money out of it with open content, though I forgot to take into account that the music industry is run by thousands of ungodly cunts. (Thanks for reminding me, zackin)