Kotaku
Since it's already April, it's fair to assume that all the Christmas gift cards have either been spent or lost by now and now all that is left to spend is that random 4000-point XBL that was bought recently probably out of curiousity. So what to spend it on?
How about 3 Guitar Hero II song packs chalk full of rock (not to be confused with "rawk") which really only have the power to take you back to a high school dance or two. Songs like Bark at the Moon from Ozzy, Take it Off by the Donnas, and Higher Ground by the Chili Peppers (ok, that one is more like junior high school) are now available at the Xbox Marketplace. At a steep 500 points per song pack, you'd think they could at least give you a song that is college radio worthy.
GH II: Song Packs (3 of 'em) [Major Nelson]
Comments
aren't those all available for guitar hero for ps2
Cost at this price to (eventually) buy all GH1 tracks: $98.
Well played, M$.
30 songs at this rate would cost $62.50. I know I won't be buying any of them.
Yes, plus most of them are total shit songs. If they are going to fuck us on price they can at least give good songs.
WOW THIS is pure insanity!!!!! i wouldnt mind maybe paying that for 3 NEWS SONGS but old reruns!?!?!?! how bout 250 a pack....i feel like someone has stole from me :(
$6.25 for 3 songs, brilliant!
I was considering getting the 360 version just because of downloadable songs, but at that price, screw you guys!
Price is too high. And MS always has an excuse. They are playing the licensing card. Such BS. If it weren't for games like Halo3 and GTA4 coming, id sell the damn box.
Microtransaction rape ahoy!
man, am i glad i have guitar hero I & II for the ps2.
360 gh II players are getting ripped. sorry about your luck.
Microsoft and Red Octane can shove these packs up their ass. This pricing is disgusting.
Didn't some RO talking head say the song pricing would be "comparable to Itunes?" Funny, I can get the real versions of these songs on Itunes for less than half of what these sons of bitches are trying to milk out of their customers.
Horse Armor '07. Or is that Lumines '07? Honestly, this may be worse than both. 100 bucks for a non-disc/downloadable "Elements of Guitar Hero." Sick.
It's "chock full," not "chalk full."
*sigh* What do I expect? Especially given that Emily Gould actually said on national television that Gawker sites have no editing or fact-checking oversight.
Are there any song in these packs that aren't from GH1?
After the outrage has a chance to wash over the MS crew, I hope they reconsider and discount these prices.
What a disappointment.
I love it, new songs for me to rock out to.
Boo!! This is precisely what I was afraid of for this game. No new songs, just rehashes from the first game. What a disappointment.
I already have GH1 and GH2 for the PS2. I only bought it on the Xbox 360 because of the all the DLC. With the prices they're charging, though, I'll completely skip the DLC altogether. It's utter crap that to buy all the GH1 songs (which are supposedly all going to be released) will cost around $100. I got GH1 and GH2 for the PS2 with a guitar brand new and for around $90 five or six months ago, and it wasn't even a sale price!
$2.08 per song is about $1.08 too much.
@donth8dre:
Do not buy them. People like you allow this price raping to happen.
Need a NICKEL or DIME? haha
If iTunes can offer these same songs at 80MS points, then asking over 100 is just completly bull shit.
What? When they said song packs I assumed it was not stuff I had already bought. I think I'm cemented in my resolve to not buy GH2 for the 360, I was considering it once. But now? Eff that.
@Scazza: Psh, at least Itunes gives you the real versions, making this pricing scheme twice as insulting.
@Deadmeat: Or add more songs. Make it 5-6 songs and I could deal.
It's sad that these 9 songs alone cost over 18 dollars when one can just get all the songs by picking up GH1 on PS2 for less than 40 bucks
@ Stratovarius
Um, they told everyone up front that the first released songs would be the songs from GH1, so 360 users (who never had a release of GH1) could play the GH1 songs.
That said, the price is nearly double what it should be. I won't buy them all (which I had planned to do), but I'm not sure I can pass up Infected by Bad Religion.
I laughed when I saw the cost in "points" for the downloads. I downloaded it however just to have extra content regardless of the fact these songs should have been a part of the original lineup considering they were featured in previous versions of the game.
I would have figured that the songs would be available individually for download for about 80points at most, at least for these tracks. I have not decided if 500 for NEW content is unreasonable considering licensing fees, etc and the fact that a new song has to be developed into a playable track for the game. I would reason that the price refelects the work that is put into each new song.
500 points for 3 songs? Wow.
The current 3 packs contain songs that are from the original Guitar Hero, of which there are 47 total playable songs (including lesser known ones), and at 500 MSP per 3 songs, that equates to roughly 8000 MSP total ($99.96 US, £68.00, $132.00 AUD) for just the GH1 songs. What the hell? That includes no guitar, no packaging, no manual and no marketing. I thought digitally distributed content was supposed to be cheaper...
I've always been pretty supportive of micropayments, but damn.
@KaneRobot: completely agree... cover songs don't need anywhere near as much to license.
This is complete bullshit. I waited for the 360 version because i was so excited about downloadable songs, now with this news I'm taking it back. I'll not be raped anymore!
Hmmm... its a wee expensive. Guess I wont be selling my Guitar Hero 1 set anytime soon.
Major Nelson posted:
"Remember, these song packs contain *licensed* songs.
Licensing songs gets pretty expensive, and complicated when you involve other countries. Anyone who knows a little bit about the music industry and publishing can tell you that it's not a walk in the park to secure content and the proper distribution licenses for songs.
I'll pass along the comments."
I'm really liking the agreement that MS came up with Epic on the new GoW map packs coming out soon.
Charge now and give them away in a month or so.
What if GH tracks were 500 when they came out and then lowered the price when new sound packs come out? I'd compare a sound pack to about a movie, which means 250 points or so.
So, 500 now and 250 later? Fair compromise?
We won't be buying those, they're not worth the 500 points. Once MS has some paks w/ GOOD songs, then we'll consider buying them.
I wasn't expecting the 1st song packs to be new songs OR to have them so soon but damn. That price really is too expensive. At max I'd only pay $1.50 (or whatever 100ms points equals out to) for each song but even then, I'd like the option to buy one song at a time.
Disappointing for sure :[
I have to agree with just about everyone. Of course for me, the feature I've been waiting on is online multiplayer. Gimme that, and I'll sell my soul over at GS to get Oliver Grundy's system on the cheap.
@donth8dre: And how long have you been doing PR work for Microsoft or Red OCtane.
i'd like to get all high and mighty about the price, but when the pack with more than a feeling comes out, i'm all over it.
Microsoft made them do it. :]
So now is it still right to complain about paying five dollars for an old NES game on the VC when you compare it to one song for Guitar Hero II?
Rip-off pricing.
Fix it. No excuses, just fix it :)
The whole console market is turning in to a price gouge fest. Back to the PC for me.
Another Major Nelson post:
Just because songs are covers does not really matter. The song publishing is what can *really* be tricky in terms of licensing. Again, as you guys know I will share the feedback with everyone here, so thanks for understanding and thinking about the legalities of it all.
To quote British Gaming Blog:
"500 points being £4.25, its time for a little BGB Math.
There are 30 cover songs in the original Guitar Hero from The Ramones to Franz Ferdinand, which if continued to be supplied in packs of 3 would equal 10 packs at £4.25 each, a grand total of £42.50 for the cover songs (i.e. not the bonus indie tracks). Seems like a bit of a rip-off to me!"
I agree. Especially as GH1, without the guitar, BRAND NEW, was £30. Shit like this is a reason I'm not buying a SINGLE digital download.
@caleb:
Ouch
@kryo: My thoughts exactly.
I think I'll be passing that along to the Major...
GH I songs for 500 pts? RIP_OFF!
boycott microtransactions. everybody.
Wow. I was going to buy GH2 for the 360 just on the promise that there would be massive amounts of new downloadable songs.
Reconsidering that purchase now...
I quite expected to pay $50 for all the content from GH1 for the 360. I was willing to part with my PS2 versions of both along with my PS2 as GH is the only reason I still have a PS2. However I can not justify the pricing which would put that same content @ over $90.
I'd even look at buying GH1 on the 360 at the "current next gen pricing" of $60. $90+ for the convienience of one disc is unacceptable.
And to all who are complaining here...vote with your wallets. Don't buy the content. They will rework it. Unfortunately I am one of the people who in the past added fuel to the fire by buying Limited editions of games at then $60. They saw we would pay that price...and now it is the norm. We should continue to voice our opinion but in a manner that is respectful IMO to be heard. BUT the only things companies really hear are the cash registers, so I beg you...vote with you wallets!
I'm so glad i held off on picking this game up now. I was leaning towards snaging it when the shop had it back in stock but with this sort of scheme for dlc, forget it. Its not even like you can put the music on your zune/ipod/pc to listen to once you've bought it - its all DRM'ed up and tied to the game, yet you're paying MORE for it. ...what a bleak future this is.
I think alot of people are overreacting... $6.25 for 3 songs SOUNDS real bad... but think of it as 2 bucks and about 8 cents per song. iTunes is a buck, and here you're getting more. They need to sync the lights to the venues for the song, package it for the game, and do the note combinations for each song. The fact they're doing songs from GH1 is probably half requested from players and half testing the waters (although I do expect to see all the GH1 songs come out- which is awesome).
Plus all you get on iTunes is the ability to listen to it - you could get this song other places to listen to it. You can't do that with GH2.
My only concerns is that I hope these are with the original bands preforming them. I also wish there were a mode in the game where you could just listen to the music (or maybe an exporter to allow you to dump the songs onto your hard drive so you could listen to them in other games on your 360) - I also hope they eventually decide to package the songs separately for like 108 or so MS points.
It's free for me :) Target gave me a free 1600 Microsoft points card when I bought Guitar Hero II for my 360. :)
us poor folk get shafted again!
Ok there is a lot of complaining on kotaku, no surprise really.
But think of it like this. GH2 is superior in all aspects to GH1 EXCEPT song selection.
This basically let's you play GH1 songs on GH2, making one killer combination. Plus you can get only the songs you want and skip out on the ones you don't give a damn about. If you like them all then too bad, pony up!
Personally I wouldn't be surprised to see that they eventually release large packs with cheaper prices per song. Think Cosco style discounting.
@y2julio:
it's still a lot of points. you could use your free points for 2 full arcade games
Wow, I was debating buying GH2 for the 360 even though I already had