More Xbox 360 MIDI Pro-Adapters On the Way
With prior Rock Band titles, distribution had been a bit… dodgy. Some people in different parts of the world have never seen local retailers stock previous titles. Many of the biggest fans in Australia resorted to importing overseas copies just so they could get their Rock Band fix.
One of the potential solutions with Rock Band 3′s distribution was to partner with an established hardware peripheral maker, MadCatz, to produce and distribute the plethora of new products that came along with Rock Band 3′s Pro mode. While this strategy solved some of the distribution problems of the game in certain areas around the globe, getting your hands on a keyboard, Pro Guitar, or MIDI Pro-Adapter has been a much different case. Unless you pre-ordered these perihperals when Rock Band 3 was initially announced, chances are good you still may not have the device you wanted to use.
It looks like MadCatz hears you, and yesterday afternoon posted a comment over at the RockBand.com forums addressing the issue. And by “issue,” I mean the lack of just the Xbox 360 MIDI Pro-Adapter availability.
This is Jeff, Community and Marketing Manager here at Mad Catz. I’ll be here posting news and updates on Alex Verrey’s behalf concerning Mad Catz hardware and peripherals, and I hope to help address any concerns or questions the Rock Band Community has on our Mad Catz accessories.
I have good news concerning the availability on the Xbox 360 MIDI PRO-Adapters that many of you have been waiting for. We expect 1,000 units to arrive to our US distribution center mid-next week, with another 3,000 to follow the next week to distribute and sell. Regular shipments of the Xbox 360 MIDI PRO-Adapters will also follow in the subsequent weeks, so Mad Catz is on schedule to release the Adaptor to our US customers by the month’s end.
Details on the initial store allocations are still pending, but I will update this post when this has been finalized.
I hope this will help alleviate some of the concerns and frustrations over when this accessory is finally becoming available. If you have any questions or comments, please reply or feel free to send me a private message through the forums messenger.
He continued on that the exact allocations to vendors has not been finalized, so estimated ship dates on places like Amazon (February 28) have not yet been revised.
Jeff also briefly addressed the European availability, as well.
To address your question, I currently have no visibility into stock allocations for the European territorities, but I can investigate this with our counterparts across the pond and try to obtain better dates as to when the adaptor will become available there. I’ll post an update when I can get this information. My apologies on the lack of information in the meantime…
There has been a groundswell of frustration among the community since launch regarding the availability of peripherals, and considering I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a MIDI Pro-Adapter yet, I think it would be fool-hardy on my part to ignore the lack of supply this late into the product’s launch. I get contacted quite frequently by people asking for help in finding a specific device, and I have the same tools at my disposal to find the product we’re all searching for. Not sure if the lack of supply is related to underestimated/overwhelming demand or a significant production issue. It’s good to see MadCatz addressing the issue, however this is one of the first communications I have seen even mentioning any sort of shortfall. Hopefully this is a sign of future openness with the community and continues.
UPDATE: Jeff from Madcatz left a comment below letting people know that there are MIDI Pro-Adapters available on MadCatz’s website right now, and that the next shipping date for the current batch of Xbox 360 MIDI Pro-Adapters is January 20th, which includes to retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.
[RockBand.com via MyGGGO]
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Good to know. Went to a few Best Buys around here in the Chicagoland area but no luck. I think I’ll just preorder on amazon and wait.
Nice to finally hear something about this. It was getting incredibly frustrating to try to order a MIDI Pro-Adapter on Amazon, only to find out that the release date had been pushed back another two months.
I assume the reasoning behind their decision to ship so few of these was that they figured only something like 0.5% of RB players would have any use for ‘em (I was extremely surprised and delighted when the thing was announced), but hopefully they’re able to correct this shortage as soon as possible.
Did they discuss more Pro Drums being shipped out?
As a Canadian it has been super frustrating.
I pre-ordered a Mustang PS3 a the weekend before RB3 came out (Oct.23/24) just to sort of reserve it as I fully didn’t expect it to show up at launch. At launch nothing, so I waited and checked around. I finally saw that Gamestop.com (US) had some in stock in December and put my order down, paid for international shipping + customs brokerage and got it in about a week and a half (leaving my pre-order to be dealt with later). Super excited I took it how and it worked great, lots of fun, overdrive was activating.
Two days later I boot it up again and the E-String is not working. Not having much time before I left for two weeks on winter vacation I leave it be.
I return from vacation and see my pre-order finally made it to EB Games Canada. So I’m sitting on a broken mustang and a new one is in store. Sadly their return policy left no way of swapping them so I cancel the pre-order and call up MadCatz support. I’m currently waiting for them to approve a replacement.
So from Oct. 26th to now Jan. 11, I’ve played Pro-Guitar mode for all of 1 night and spent $194.
On a side note, after actually getting through to MadCatz support they seem quite nice though I wish the replacement process was faster as I first contact them last tuesday, didn’t hear anything from them again until Friday and they said a replacement should be with me 2-3 weeks after that (if it’s approved, which is making me nervous that they won’t for some reason).
Additional sidenote: I also had to order the keyboard from gamestop.com and pay for brokerage/international shipping as it was no where to be found in Canada.
Emil Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I feel your pain, brother. I’ve been waiting for the Mustang since they announced it. Got the preorders in at two different Swedish retailers early, it was delayed of course but then in the first week of December one of them had two guitars in stock. My significant other convinced me to wait for christmas (she’d already bought it for me and hinted at this quite obviously), so I couldn’t get one.
Christmas comes, guitar in hand! So happy to finally get it. Fucking A string doesn’t register any notes… I take it back to the store and naturally there’s nothing left in stock, and I figure my best bet is to return it, get a receipt to pick a new one up, and then wait until they get more of them… Still no word from them, they don’t even have a date or any word whatsoever on when to expect it. So now I’m tied to waiting for the guitar from this particular store, and I can’t order it from someplace else (like overseas, which I don’t really want to either cause I’m kinda expecting my next one to be broken too).
It f*cking sucks. I don’t really understand it… but then again, I guess it’s crappy hardware since the strings wouldn’t register, so they’re obviously having problems in manufacturing.
It’s hard to explain the frustration… I’ve been near obssessed with getting this peripheral. I’m about to give up by now. F*ck!
Xanadu Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
It sucks doesn’t it? I’ve had to order they keyboard from amazon as well as my midi pro. Thankfully the keyboard came really quick (under 16 hours, no joke). However, the one thing ive been looking forward to since launch is nowhere to be seen.
Mascara finally communicated with us? Great, it took you long enough. Now how about addressing your Canadian audience too.
Well it is nice to hear that someone is at least giving an update. Sometimes even if it isn’t what we want to hear just being told something is already nice sometimes (*cough* Harmonix- female curly hair *cough*).
Xbox 360 MIDI PRO-Adapter Release date: Never.
It’s about fucking time! Seriously, I know peripherals are expensive to manufacturer and all, but this is a bloody box with a circuit board in it. This should be trivially easy to mass produce compared to things like the keyboard and pro guitar peripherals. I have an e-kit I’ve been using via a hacked controller for the last couple years, but I’ve been waiting to play pro drums with it for months! You can’t even find a single one north of the border here. I’ve tried looking on Ebay, and the few that do pop up are going for upwards of $100. The bloody thing retails for $40! I’ve tried to be patient with the peripherals on this game, but this is just fucking ridiculous. Get your gorram shit together, Mad Catz!
I hope they get things settled out before the Squiers start shipping.
Michelle Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I really wouldn’t hold your breath. I’m completely serious I don’t see how they can turn this around by March. They’ve failed spectacularly just by missing the game launch window, Christmas sales and halfway through January a few thousand will leak out into the US.
Well what about the rest of the world?
Well, imagine for us, Europe guys… I fear my TD4KX will never see this adapter…. I have RB3 still the release date, but still can’t play it, because I have plan to play it with the TD4 and so I nothing else that it to play RB3… such a frutration…..
Maxim Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I’m in your boat, sort of. I live in the Netherlands and have a roland TD9KX and am still waiting for the adapter to be shipped. I do play regular drums on RB3 with my TD9KX, though, using the GHWT kit and a midi-cable.
Whizzer Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Most Dutch webshops show January 14th, this Friday. I’ve had a pre-order for months now as well as one on Amazon.de, which now sits at February 1.
One is meant for my Casio keyboard, so I hope it comes this Friday. The other is for my Squier and since there’s no word on when that will be released outside the US, it can wait for at least another month.
But overall, the hardware release of Rock Band 3 is quite disastrous. At least we can still play it just fine with hardware we have right now.
Well, imagine for us, Europe guys… I fear my TD4KX will never see this adapter…. I have RB3 since the release date, but still can’t play it, because I had plan to play with the TD4 and sold my Ion and no I have nothing to play RB3… such a frutration…..
RottenDan Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:32 am
you can use the Guitar hero drum controller, not in pro mode but it’s ok for waiting
Latin America dammit!!
Here in Chile we don’t have even a freakin keyboard xD
I laughed when you called madcatz an established maker. From what I remember their controllers were cheaper than Scrooge back in the days of the n64 all the way to the ps2.
RockBandAide Reply:
January 12th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Yes, “back in the days” they were the “value” maker of peripherals, but if you have had experience with the Rock Band 3 peripherals, they are much higher quality than previous Rock Band peripherals. So I stand by my “established maker” statement.
Yeah, it was a complete fail by MadCatz for all the hardware products. I waited 3 weeks for the Wii keyboard, and a month and a half for the Mustang. The Wii MIDI adapter isn’t even shipping yet.
Mike Reply:
January 12th, 2011 at 1:23 am
Really? All the stores say they’ve got those. Xbox ones are nonexistent, but apparently everyone’s got Wii ones.
http://www.amazon.com/Wii-Rock-Band-MIDI-PRO-Nintendo/dp/B00409SOEG/
Matt Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Weird, I could’ve sworn I checked and I couldn’t find any.
Still doesn’t excuse the other issues.
Mike Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Got my Wii adapter about 2 weeks ago through amazon. Only cost me $30 too…
Also, it is awesome.
One of the few things Wii Rock Banders can brag about having before 360…
Its absolutely ridiculous. For canadians its literally impossible unless you wanna pay up the ass. I preordered the mustang before the game even came out and around december 3rd i got fed up and canceled my preorder with best buy which was costing me 152$ and bought it off amazon who had it in stock for 192$, or else i probably still wouldnt even have it. The guitar works great though for me.
Now i have my own big keyboard so im waiting for this midi adapter so i can at least TRY the damn keyboard part of the game and now this is taking forever too. And from what he just said there, there is NO SHOT for canadians to get their hands on this thing.
As far as im concerned this is the ultimate failure for a game release. They should have definately delayed the game launch until they were able to ship EVERYTHING. Squier and all. That way they woulda had a little bit more time to work on the game itself, and when we bought it we wouldnt be completely frustrated because we cant even play the damn game ( or at least any of the new features)
So now it seems im just gonna have to buy one of those ones off ebay for 70$ or whatever theyre going for because im not waiting till april. Im sure the squier is gonna have the same damn problem. And I cant even preorder that because bestbuy.ca doesnt even have the item and .com wont ship to canada.
If the game failed then this is the reason why.
You guys have it good. In Australia, we didn’t even have a release of RB2, the only way to get the keys was to pre-order them when RB3 was released and now the shops don’t stock them. Drums??? forget it unless you want to pay boatloads of $$$ in shipping. Ditto for guitars. Basically in Oz, they basically rely on people having the stuff because the guitar hero series is so much more supported here.
the most annoying thing though is not having rock band network.. sooooooo many good songs there I cry about not having!!
Hey everyone–this is Jeff from Mad Catz. All I can say is I do understand your frustration, especially with the midi adapters. Our original intention was to have all midi adapters available prior to the Squier release, and we do apologize again for any misunderstanding. Yes, we would have liked to have the midi available much earlier–especially since so many people want them.
However, there is good news. We do have midis available right now on our website, and we expect to start shipping them out Thursday, 1/20. We also are sending some of this initial shipment to Best Buy and Amazon to help with the pre-orders.
You can find the midi here:
http://store.gameshark.com/viewItem.asp?idProduct=4832&idCategory=323
Thank you, and we will try to be more interactive with you in the future.
Dorkmaster Flek Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
That’s great, Jeff, but your online store does not ship to Canada. I have to say, I find it pretty damn incredible that these things can be available in the US for over a month and not a single one has made it north of the border yet. I understand the keyboards and the Mustang pro guitar are difficult to manufacture, but this is a circuit board in a box. This should be pretty damn trivial to mass produce in the scheme of things, and the keyboards and Mustangs have been available in Canada since late November/early December.
Licorice man Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
I second that. It appears the only online store that ships to Canada is Amazon.ca, which projects the pre-orders delivery date for Feb 28. Way off the mark. And the cost, 49.99$, which is 25% higher than the US cost, outrageous given the currency change rate!
RockBandAide Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Did you read the article? It SPECIFICALLY addresses the February 28th ship date.
Nate Reply:
January 24th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Jeff, do you know how to access the ‘Integrated headset port for Xbox LIVE®’, I can’t seem to find the headphone jack anywhere on the midi pro-adapter. It’s advertised as a feature all over the place. Did someone forget to cut a hole in the plastic or is my unit defective?
Please give us info for Europe, we are human too !!