I think the Mics are bad too as I keep getting horrible scores but that's impossible because I got to the 2nd finales on American Idol in season 6.

this is no good as im still waiting, i hope mine doesnt have any problems out of the box, i would be a very sad panda... also some one on ebay is selling RB for 10k :D

Good luck getting replacement hardware when it is all already in backorder?!

I'll sit here happy with my GH3 (I am in Australia so I wont get rock band until 2k9)

@Barbara: :O?

@Barbara: So, they kept you around for the "screw up" shows?

I kid, I kid

This is horrible news. Huge expectations, huge hype, and hardware failures. Sounds like a certain white box that's sitting next to my monitor....

I hear those drums break quite easily as well. Funny, almost.

I noticed the problem with down-strumming on a demo unit in store.

The unit couldn't have been on display for more than a day or two.

If it can't stand up to a day or two on display in a store then it doesn't stand much hope of lasting longterm in someone's home.

Rules of the internet. If a guitar game is released, let there be posts about faulty guitars.

This guitar really encourages that you actually do up/down strokes because rapid down strokes is harder to do with the controller. I really don't mind, I've been trying to break myself of the habit anyway.

Looks like god is avenging on all those who laughed at the scratched Halo 3 LE discs. =P

Oh, and I do like the fake that the warranty stuff is being handled by EA directly and they're not making you go back and return everything to the store. This is a wise choice as having to return (2 so far... Now if only I could find a third) Guitar Hero 3 bundles to the store blows.

@Barob: Yeah, please don't turn this into another one of those topics.

Sounds awfully like what happened with the whammy bar with GH2. I honestly think most the time its people being to rough with it, i mean while playing you might not actually be aware of how hard your strumming and so on.

@DigitalHero: I think God is avenging us spending all that money on a video game bundle instead of those poor starving kids in developing countries. They're starving you know, while we're busy arguing about song packs.

The guitar controller on the rock band demo sku at best buy had the same problem actually.

red string of death?

That Clash album cover is one of my favorite ones ever. It's sooooooooo RAW. I remember when I bought it back in the day, there was a little sticker on it saying "The only band that matters"!

Anyway, I knew the guitars would have some problems...it's their first design without RedOctane, who were the brains behind the accessories in the old RO/Harmonix super-duo.

Well, anyone actually play it?

Is it good?

There certainly has been a lot of noise...

I know that RB will take the Hypie award this year.

@MCW07:

LOL!

sounds like sabotage. Neversoft and Ahmadinejad might be behind this.

I haven't had any problems with the drums after 2 days of solid play, and the guitar strum did occasional "double strums" here and there, but the problem went away. The strum feels completely different than the ones on the guitar hero I and II controllers, this new one feels like you can just slap your thumb against it and it works fine. If you try to strum down extra hard it might cause the double strums, just try slapping it more lightly and see if the problem goes away. Overall, I love the new guitar because you don't hear that loud-as-hell click sound every time you strum.

Wow ... $200 down the drain....

@optimoose: I can't stand it. I know they planned it. I'm gonna set it straight, this Watergate.

Alright, the Rock Band guitar is broken like my stupid Wii Guitar Hero guitar is. Detachable necks is the stupidest idea ever especially when it stops the two from connecting at times.

No official statement on this though.

I noticed this the day before launch at the demo unit at BB. Downstrum was all screwed up.

I've also noticed that the drums don't always register hits.

@Digitalguardian:

So was the one at my local Walmart.

Should have just stuck with the old guitar hero guitars. They worked, plenty about so if you broke your Rock Band one you still had the Guitar Hero one, but oh well.

i just got back from my local best buy, which, amazingly, still had a copy. i opened the box, and the guitar's downstrum doesn't work... XD. i took it back and got a refund... ill go buy it again in a few months when they fix it.

Havent noticed a problem with mine- yet havent played it very much, if it doesnt work does it completely not work? or does it just randomly miss notes. A lot of my friends says its more difficult to hit many fast notes in a long row..wonder if its the guitar, or them?

@JesseLacey: just in general missed notes, occasionally double notted, and then died completly for me. after about 20 minutes of play.

Anyway, about my problem.
Well, I have the same problem but I found out that if you strum down very lightly, it'll work. It's annoying as hell though. You try getting through Train Kept A-Rolling and then not being able to get the bonus with your bandmates because you didn't strum down.

I haven't messed with the guitar yet, but my drums are odd. The red decides to not register AT ALL in the middle of songs.. It could be all red notes and not one will register. There was a cardboard spacer keeping it from moving when I took it out of the box but I removed that so it's not that. I also no my timing isn't THAT horrible to miss every red note.

Rock Band Calling?

It's ironic actually, because that same problem plagued my Best Buy's demo of Rock Band. I could only strum the guitar with an up-strum. Good thing I have 2 guitars from Guitar Hero 2...

There have been brave souls who have opened the guitar to find that the switches for the paddle is connected by hot glue. I finessed the guitar after feeling how sensitive it is but after about 6 hours total play it did start having issues. If you slam the paddle a lot it'll go in an hour but in the end the paddle will begin to fail regardless of how strenuous the use.

I wanted the Fender to work out soooo much but once the paddle failed I slapped in the Les Paul and the scores went right up. Its sad but Harmonix needed Red Octane on that guitar controller. You shouldn't have to handle a controller like a piece of fine china. It really needed some more durability tests.

@WatershipDown: Aye, this'll bring out the vocal posters. Especially the "well, well we told you it was a waste of money" people.

I've seen plenty of reports that probably tend towards either a minor design flaw, or a batch with a construction flaw. In either case, if someone has been able to do a gut transplant between a PS2 and 360 Guitar Hero controller, someone on the internets will find a simple fix involving a toothpick and a dab of hot glue or something.

The PS2 Gibson SG must work in RB, right? That's the way I went for GH3... just use one guitar for the whole extended family of Guitar Hero games. No problems!

But seriously, that sucks. I'd have thought they'd playtest these things more seriously for such a popular game. Good luck all of you waiting for replacements!

Hmm, you know I was really hyped for this game right until it came out. I'm glad I suddenly lost interest.

PREMONITION

I just checked the EA warranty site and a return seemed pretty easy. That calms my mind a bit as I got one coming and I don't have the patience to wait. This is the one game I've been really looking forward to.

yikes..i've only played drums so far..and they're working perfect..if this really is a widespread problem..they seriously need to make it where the PS3 GHIII Les Paul will work with Rock Band...or they face an enormous PR disaster IMO.

I noticed, at three separate Best Buys, that the down strum on the guitars was wonky. On one of them, it wouldn't even register anymore and on the other two it'd only sometimes register and you could never hold it down for long notes. I was told numerous times that this was because they sent out early gear to get all the demo kiosks up.

And so, like the dutiful consumer that I am, I went and picked up Rock Band on launch day. But I wasn't able to open it up that night and now I'm glad as can be that I didn't. I just got back from Best Buy, where I returned my unopened Rock Band bundle. They still had three palettes worth of the bundles there.

Funny, I just got back from Wal-Mart where I went to go try out Rock Band and the guitar had these problems, and I come home and see this post.

Check out my comment history, I freaking called this. EA + ANYTHING = incredible disaster. If EA bought Bungie, Halo 4 would be the worst game of the year. This game really needed to just be Guitar Hero 4: Rock Band so that it wouldn't have to become such a colossal commercial failure. Seriously, the Toys r Us I went to pick up Trauma Center today said they had received ONE copy of the 360 game.

If you are in that short of a supply, LAUNCH WHEN YOU HAVE ENOUGH FUCKING UNITS. I hope this problem isn't for PS3 owners too though, I hear they don't have any other option...

@syl1985: Same here.

I don't think I'm even going to buy RB until they fix the compatibility issues with the GH3 guitars on PS3. I don't care who needs to fix it, or what they need to do to fix it, but I'm buggered if I'm spending more cash on peripherals when it just seems these guys made incompatible equipment to leverage sales of their own bundles.

Damn i dodge the bullet, i was going to buy the bundle, but after reading all the isses im going to wait a little while...

I had a problem with the dongle to connect the headset to the guitar/drums, but that seems to have resolved itself. Other than that, no complaints. Except for the DLC not being in the Canadian store.

@usfslacker:
I wouldn't blame this on EA though, as it is merely handling distribution. It's not the publisher or developer.

I'm glad I didn't buy the first iteration of Rock Band. It is fun and the drums are badass, but it is pretty much a platform, and the first rev. is usually risky to buy with anything like this.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't have this problem? Too bad we couldn't set up a poll to see what the failure rates were....

Everything is fine so far with mine. The game is freaking incredible. If my guitar fails, I still have three other guitars I can use. The drums rule.

My guitar for GH2 did that thing where it registered about 3 strums downwards instead of 1. Too late to return it so I had to wait for GH3 for a new guitar.

So yeah, this isn't an EA problem. Unless EA sabotaged my guitar six months ago. I bet they did.

i did like the look of the RB strat, but i always preffered the GH3 les paul anyway.

looks like my les paul and x-plorer will be gettin some more lovin.

@syl1985:
I would imagine (as with most releases) that a number of units are withheld for just this type of situation. I bought a Wii at launch, and about