I picked up GHWT with just the Guitar. That's what I wanted - a guitar game. And got a quality product, so I can't complain. However, I've played all of the instruments, and GHWT is a quality product. Rock Band is better in regards to menus and such, and there in-game meters are better, but GHWT is a fine game, and I don't know why it takes so much crap.
I'm not saying Rock Band 2 is a bad game, Rock Band is a great series, but Neversoft seems to have finally gotten the hand of their Guitar franchise.
@AgainstOne: Doesn't mean everywhere had it, or that he was willing to wait until the last minute to do his Xmas shopping when HMX didn't even announce the release date until December.
Ok, it's a bit of a "Everybody Gets a Trophy Day" observation, but I'm pretty stoked that the two combined to 5.1 million in sales; given when they came out in the year and how much the deluxe packs cost, that's downright sexy.
Heck, I prefer Rock Band for a million tiny reasons, but most of all I want the genre to thrive.
At first I was leaning towards RB2, but when my brother bought GHWT it was the drums that surprised me the most. Although they have already broken once (we got a replacement within a day for free), I really like them. They are a lot of fun to play and I prefer them over the guitar.
@KatrinaBabalique: GH3 beat Rock Band to market on every platform, and by 6 months on Wii. Rock Band 2 beat GHWT to market by 2 months on 360 and 1 month on PS3, and was 2 months behind on PS2 and Wii.
It's all about name recognition and who has the bigger brand. GH surely wins in this regard. I'm guessing your average Mortal Kombat title sells more than Guilty Gear, too.
I have both, and I just can't get into the drumming on GHWT. I play far more Rock Band and lately DTXMania. It's free, it's on PC, I can make my own songs/charts, it works with my Ion drums, and it's generally more challenging/realistic than RB (it makes me better at RB).
Still, I have friends over, or I want to get a little exercise, I pull out RB2.
@Billkwando: yeah, they really dropped the ball on the drums on GH:WT. this is definitely my biggest (out of the many) turnoff of the game.
having to hit yellow and blue simultaneously to activate star power is assinine. there are so many songs where you rarely get a break long enough to do that.
and the drum fills sections were so poorly thought out. first, they're barely noticeable and they way they give you points per hit just turns the fills into a hit-fest that sounds awful.
I would credit this to what I like to call the "ignorant wii masses". I'm overly confident that more than half of the wii install base is a bunch of ignorant consumers. These are the same people who bought tickle me elmo and digi-pets in the 90s. People simply get the Wii because it is a hot item. Half of them know NOTHING about the wii when they purchase it. Its really sad that the same ignorance that dominates TV and film is now starting to dominate video games as well.
GHWT is not a horrible game, but I don't think it even compares to RB2. Also like the author of this article said, the average consumer buys GH because its GH. They have no idea that Hmx is behind RB.
@mcballz: I would like to counter by pointing out that RB2 Wii was only released on December 18th, and it was only announced to be coming out then a week or two before. For all intents and purposes, it missed Xmas.
@MrDemonicAngel: Yeah, that was my feeling too. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the broken vocals...but trying to sing a song in a foreign language while also combating the arbitraily picky scoring system sucked the fun out of my preferred instrument.
GHWT is the first time out for them while people already bought Rock Band 1 last year. Combine RB1 and RB2 and what do you get? You do need need RB2 to keep buying the DLC.
I personally bought the RB2 game only and ported the RB1 over and loving the game. Used to like GH but no interest in buying 500 seperate iterations of the game for each band.
@wancell: You do need need RB2 to keep buying the DLC.
No. You don't. Any DLC songs released since RB2 came out is fully compatible with RB1. There was a title update that took care of this before RB2 was even out.
@mfwahwah: Same type of game, but the execution between them is significantly different.
In RB, you unlock new items and immediately have them in your inventory. In GH you can unlock something...but then you have to keep playing to earn the money to buy the item you unlocked. (Thus artificially extending play time)
In RB, you can unlock all the songs through a natural progression of the Tour Challenges, Career Mode, or BWT. The only time you have to "grind" is to earn the stars for the Endless Setlist. In GH, there are a number of venues that once "unlocked" must once again be purchased. And to make matters worse, a venue you purchase during guitar career is NOT unlocked for bass career. Meaning you have 4-5 venues (each ranging from $2k-$4k that you have to rebuy each career mode)
GHWT does have the edge when it comes to character customization and the music creator. But to me the character/instrument customization isn't the "focus" of the game...since most of the time I'm going to be watching the chart and not my unscreen avatar.
The music creator is fun at first...but after toying around with it for a while (and playing several downloaded creations) I realized how lame even the most accurate recreations of famous songs can be without vocals.
And then there's the "If one bandmate fails that's it" issue with GHWT. Whenever I was doing bandplay, I felt like four seperate people all happening to play on the same TV, vs. 4 people working together to overcome a song.
@CockroachMan: My thoughts exactly. Activision gave Wii owners a fully featured online capable game, even starting with GH:3. Harmonix gave Wii owners a stripped, half ass year-late port of the PS2 version of RB with no online whatsoever. It's no wonder RB2 didn't sell well either.
@subnet6: Well, they promised DLC for GH3 on the Wii but never delivered on that until World Tour. Rock Band 2 is nice on the Wii, but its instruments are not compatible with both games. I bought GHWT for the Wii (my first GH/RB game), and will get the RB2 disc (only) once I've completed the career modes for the instruments I have. I'm sure I'm not the only one, too.
This is exactly why too. Wii owners are starved for good games and while GHWT isn't great, it's better than most of the shlock out there for the Wii. Harmonix dropped the ball big time there.
@CockroachMan: Their target audiences is young to middle aged people who enjoy rock music. Most of the people (even my parents now -_-) who play the Wii are in their 40s.
Myself, I hate the Wii, and even it if was "full featured", I wouldn't play it.
What I'm saying is, the Wii might be the best selling platform, but it didn't match their target market, really.
@oolz: Wii owners are starved for good games because for the most part your choices are first party Nintendo stuff or the masses of cheap shovelware the console attracts.
I've said from day 1 the Wii is a last gen console with a different controller. Have Sony not yet realised they can rival the Wii simply by bringing out a Sonymote for the PS2.
Either way you're never going to get the cutting edge of games because the Wii can't handle the graphics, physics and sheer grunt required of modern titles. Cut down ports and casual crap with just the occasional gem thanks to a bit of clever innovation is the best it's going to get so if you want kick ass Rock Band get a proper console.
And yes I have had a Wii, then a bright blue paperweight and now some shelf space for 360 games and Blu-ray movies (someone suggested Sony will release games for the PS3 soon, should be good ;-)
I'm looking forward to getting flamed :-) Hey people like what they like, I don't like the Wii (I also don't know anyone that does after the second week), but if you do that's cool, however, if you don't like the games vote with your wallet and go and buy one of the other consoles that has the games you like. Right now everyone buying the crap Nintendo are encouraging is just further encouraging the industry to make more of it!
@CockroachMan: I agree. I know this is not relevant to the numbers on the article, but i'm gonna end up having both rockband 2 and guitar hero world tour. Wich one got my money on the full band pack? Guitar Hero.
In addition to the idiotic staggered release schedule (RB2 only hitting the two biggest installed bases for two weeks in 2008), GH:WT has the advantage of brand name, one they spun into a guitar-only kit that nicely hit the huge price gap between game-only (people who owned Rock Band setups) and Band Kit (newcomers). The hidden story is they sold over 1 million guitar-only bundles at a lowered price point that proved much more attractive to cash-strapped US shoppers. The guy who championed a guitar-only bundle should be getting a big check and a blowjob from Bobby Kotick come March.
@wilbot: I hear you, but no DLC is nothing compared to the hackjob that was RB1 on Wii. With your further point, no, you're not alone. I plan to do the same thing. Pick up RB2 for Wii and use my existing GH stuff with it.
@subnet6: HMX didn't make the RB for Wii, it was ported over by some other company EA made do it. Secondly, RB2 on Wii sold ridiculously well for only being about about 2 weeks at the end of last year, I'm sure if it came out earlier it would have done even better.
@Jmax2792: Who made it doesn't matter. Activision didn't technically make the Wii version of GH either. I think it was vicarious visions?
Anyway, the point remains the same, if you make a decent game, the Wii owners will be more likely to buy it. If you make a half ass port like RB1, it won't do nearly as well.
Something like this needs to be even further indepth than it is. Too many variables to consider and wonder about. Is Wii Sports considered one for the Wii? Are things like Gears of War and Resistance considered first or second party? And if second, wherein does that lie with the numbers? Do downloadable titles count toward this? etc.
Our Wii has 3 games for it (Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros.) with about a dozen varying Virtual Console titles. Whereas with our PS3 we have 11 games currently with 12 PSN titles. A similar number could also be given for our 360 when we had it.
But considering we've bought and sold, and in a few cases traded in, various other titles I wonder what these attach rates take into account.
It would be fascinating how after market games and the used industry (ebay, Gamestop/EB, etc.) would alter this.
01/26/09
For me, there is absolutely no comparison. RB all the way -- I have over 400 songs available with no disc swapping.
01/26/09
I'm not saying Rock Band 2 is a bad game, Rock Band is a great series, but Neversoft seems to have finally gotten the hand of their Guitar franchise.
01/26/09
Lots of Wiis out there. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
Besides, as Torgen said, if you don't announce the shipping date up until 3 weeks before christmas you have a big problem with logistics.
01/26/09
Heck, I prefer Rock Band for a million tiny reasons, but most of all I want the genre to thrive.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
So now GHWT is ONLY outselling Rock Band 2 by a margin of 2 to 1.
Seems like if you look at it that way, then Rock band is rapidly closing the gap on the GH franchise.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
I have both, and I just can't get into the drumming on GHWT. I play far more Rock Band and lately DTXMania. It's free, it's on PC, I can make my own songs/charts, it works with my Ion drums, and it's generally more challenging/realistic than RB (it makes me better at RB).
Still, I have friends over, or I want to get a little exercise, I pull out RB2.
01/26/09
having to hit yellow and blue simultaneously to activate star power is assinine. there are so many songs where you rarely get a break long enough to do that.
and the drum fills sections were so poorly thought out. first, they're barely noticeable and they way they give you points per hit just turns the fills into a hit-fest that sounds awful.
01/26/09
01/26/09
GHWT is not a horrible game, but I don't think it even compares to RB2. Also like the author of this article said, the average consumer buys GH because its GH. They have no idea that Hmx is behind RB.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
I personally bought the RB2 game only and ported the RB1 over and loving the game. Used to like GH but no interest in buying 500 seperate iterations of the game for each band.
01/26/09
No. You don't. Any DLC songs released since RB2 came out is fully compatible with RB1. There was a title update that took care of this before RB2 was even out.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
In RB, you unlock new items and immediately have them in your inventory. In GH you can unlock something...but then you have to keep playing to earn the money to buy the item you unlocked. (Thus artificially extending play time)
In RB, you can unlock all the songs through a natural progression of the Tour Challenges, Career Mode, or BWT. The only time you have to "grind" is to earn the stars for the Endless Setlist. In GH, there are a number of venues that once "unlocked" must once again be purchased. And to make matters worse, a venue you purchase during guitar career is NOT unlocked for bass career. Meaning you have 4-5 venues (each ranging from $2k-$4k that you have to rebuy each career mode)
GHWT does have the edge when it comes to character customization and the music creator. But to me the character/instrument customization isn't the "focus" of the game...since most of the time I'm going to be watching the chart and not my unscreen avatar.
The music creator is fun at first...but after toying around with it for a while (and playing several downloaded creations) I realized how lame even the most accurate recreations of famous songs can be without vocals.
And then there's the "If one bandmate fails that's it" issue with GHWT. Whenever I was doing bandplay, I felt like four seperate people all happening to play on the same TV, vs. 4 people working together to overcome a song.
01/26/09
/yes, I'm American
01/26/09
01/26/09
Maybe now Harmonix will learn to give more attention to the best selling platform..
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/26/09
This is exactly why too. Wii owners are starved for good games and while GHWT isn't great, it's better than most of the shlock out there for the Wii. Harmonix dropped the ball big time there.
01/26/09
Myself, I hate the Wii, and even it if was "full featured", I wouldn't play it.
What I'm saying is, the Wii might be the best selling platform, but it didn't match their target market, really.
01/26/09
So.. it doesn't make sense.
01/26/09
I've said from day 1 the Wii is a last gen console with a different controller. Have Sony not yet realised they can rival the Wii simply by bringing out a Sonymote for the PS2.
Either way you're never going to get the cutting edge of games because the Wii can't handle the graphics, physics and sheer grunt required of modern titles. Cut down ports and casual crap with just the occasional gem thanks to a bit of clever innovation is the best it's going to get so if you want kick ass Rock Band get a proper console.
And yes I have had a Wii, then a bright blue paperweight and now some shelf space for 360 games and Blu-ray movies (someone suggested Sony will release games for the PS3 soon, should be good ;-)
I'm looking forward to getting flamed :-) Hey people like what they like, I don't like the Wii (I also don't know anyone that does after the second week), but if you do that's cool, however, if you don't like the games vote with your wallet and go and buy one of the other consoles that has the games you like. Right now everyone buying the crap Nintendo are encouraging is just further encouraging the industry to make more of it!
01/26/09
It couldn't have been more forced if you had transitioned from "Boy I like pizza" to "but jeeze the Wii really sucks."
01/26/09
01/26/09
Why? Because they are the only ones selling the damn game in México. Rockband 2 was brought here ONLY as a full band game with the instruments of rockband 1 at 290 dollars. So for now i'm with GH. In a few months then i'll buy rockband, but for now my money went to activision.
01/26/09
Not true for Rock Band or Rock Band 2. 360 is actually the most popular sku for bundle and game only for those two titles.
01/26/09
In addition to the idiotic staggered release schedule (RB2 only hitting the two biggest installed bases for two weeks in 2008), GH:WT has the advantage of brand name, one they spun into a guitar-only kit that nicely hit the huge price gap between game-only (people who owned Rock Band setups) and Band Kit (newcomers). The hidden story is they sold over 1 million guitar-only bundles at a lowered price point that proved much more attractive to cash-strapped US shoppers. The guy who championed a guitar-only bundle should be getting a big check and a blowjob from Bobby Kotick come March.
01/26/09
01/26/09
01/29/09
Anyway, the point remains the same, if you make a decent game, the Wii owners will be more likely to buy it. If you make a half ass port like RB1, it won't do nearly as well.
11/07/08
Our Wii has 3 games for it (Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros.) with about a dozen varying Virtual Console titles. Whereas with our PS3 we have 11 games currently with 12 PSN titles. A similar number could also be given for our 360 when we had it.
But considering we've bought and sold, and in a few cases traded in, various other titles I wonder what these attach rates take into account.
It would be fascinating how after market games and the used industry (ebay, Gamestop/EB, etc.) would alter this.