Coming Holiday 2011: Rock Band 3
Yes, you read that correctly. I also had to double check the date of the source when I originally read this, as well.
We learned last year that peripheral maker MadCatz would be Rock Band 3′s official peripheral maker, and that outside of the Squier Pro-Guitar, production of all instruments for Rock Band 3 would be managed them. Unlike previous Rock Band core titles, Rock Band 3 did not come in a version bundled with all instruments, rather a single bundle was produced existing of only the game and the new Keys peripheral.
According to Gamasutra, MadCatz has entered into an agreement with Harmonix that allows them to re-release Rock Band 3 this coming holiday season. It also appears that MadCatz will be creating a few new bundles to satisfy customers who didn’t get on board last year. The first is a bundle that will include the game and both the Keys and Guitar peripherals. The second bundle will include the game and a Mustang Pro-Guitar.
If you remember, the price of the Rock Band 3 software was discounted to $19.99 earlier this year, and there is as of yet no word on the bundle pricing.
MadCatz president Darren Richardson commented on the agreement:
“We are pleased to assume publishing responsibilities for Rock Band 3 this holiday season. Rock Band is the ultimate interactive experience for any music fan, whether they’re looking for a great party game to share with friends, playing through Rock Band’s 3000 plus song library, or seeking out a fun way to learn guitar, drum or keyboard skills using Rock Band 3’s Pro Mode.”
While Rock Band 3 was a critical success, many sources note that the volume of sales was far less than expected. Does MadCatz believe they can capitalize on something that was missed the first time around?
[via Gamasutra]
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It was a good idea not to flood stores with huge boxes full of instruments with Rock Band 3′s original release. It’s an equally good idea to release new bundles into stores for this holiday.
HUGSaLOT Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 9:35 am
Sounds like a fine idea to me. I did wonder why they had no full-band bundles when RB3 came out. I do need a new drum kit, I still have RB1 drum kit (yes still works) I like the slow pace releases of Rock Band titles, vs the onslaught of Guitar Hero titles that came out every 4-6 months, which ultimately caused their demise. I hope harmonix can acquire GH from Activision and bring the genre into a whole once again.
smacd Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
what would be the point? if anything, Harmonix should acquire GH and bury it for good, just to make sure their competition doesn’t come back. They don’t really need to have two similar series under the same management.
Sans Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Gh is going to make a come back.
smacd Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I believe it will too. The minute that Activision thinks they milk the franchise again to death, they will dig up the rotting and festering remains and feed it some zombie juice. I have no doubt it will come back, but I have no doubt it will continue to completely miss the point.
HUGSaLOT Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
The point would be is they can acquire the song rights of songs that GH had, that RB dosen’t have now. Though MANY songs on GH I’ve already played on RB (another reason why GH died off). However if they did aquire GH, then they would own ‘Guitar Hero: Metalica’ then maybe I can finally export ‘Enter Sandman’ from RB1.
J-Dawg Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 10:17 am
Definitely. Especially since in the past few months my drum kit died and my guitar is gradually giving up the ghost…
Toothball Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 10:58 am
I think the bundles this time are a double good idea. When I wandered into HMV on launch day, they had four keyboards (for Xbox, no others), which they were in the middle of putting on the shelves. Across from those were piles of Guitar Hero 5 gear (or Warriors of Rock, it was about the same time). I had been considering a Mustang but they would eventually arrive in the country a couple of months later.
I was in the same store recently. The only music peripherals they have left are some mic stands and a guitar tree. Few of the Xbox mics, but those are parked next to the Lips discs.
A relaunch could go well with the reduced competition for sales as well as shelf space. But only if they manage to get the distribution in order this time. The original launch suffered a lot from lack of stock. I do hope they don’t repeat that.
Are they also gonna fix the random mid-game rebooting (ps3)?
RockBandAide Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 10:01 am
If they could figure it out, or even reproduce the crash, they would: http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204558&p=4365310#post4365310
Epsilon Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
At this point I’d settle for just an “update” that rolls back the 1.03 patch. I’d rather have the occasional keyboard sound glitch and actually be able to play the game consistently uninterrupted. And I wouldn’t really mind as much if they could find a way to cache the song list in a way that doesn’t require such an insane load time if you have a lot of DLC. If it were more like 1 minute to boot and play instead of closer to 5, the kicks wouldn’t be such a huge issue.
I’m almost positive it has something to do with the Rock Central Servers flaking out, which is why it’s so difficult to consistently reproduce. Why it started (or at least got so widespread) after the 1.03 patch is another question entirely.
Anon Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
You do know that the XMB crashes have been happening since day 1, not just since 1.03, and also that the keyboard sound glitch was BLOWING PEOPLES’ SPEAKERS, right?
Polka Nuns Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 12:24 am
For once I can say the Wii wins … we don’t have a DLC load time. ftw.
smacd Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
I would prefer a fix to sorting issues (for example, you have the listing showing bass, and you choose a song but back out before actually starting, the sorting/scores shown reverts back to guitar)
At this point that’s the most frequent issue I stumble into.
Hmmmm…. Since RB3 is 20$, I’d say the keys/guitar/game bundle will probably cost the same as the keys/game bundle, so around 120$.
The mustang/game bundle will probably be 130$.
These are just rough guesstimations.
I don’t see this going well for MadCatz. Big bulky bundles on store shelves don’t sell nearly as quickly as stores would like. I mean, maybe just maybe if the prices are cheap because the software went down in price, but I just can’t imagine people clamoring to buy a bundle for a game that is a year old.
NICE!!
The game would have sold much better if more advertising was done, that was the fatal problem.
Delibird444 Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
I feel the exact same!
So many products I’ve loved have tanked\are tanking due to extreme lack of advertising. Rock Band 3, Zune HD, Nintendo 3DS- a little good advertising can go a long way when trying to push sales. For the Zune HD (which was an AMAZING media player), just getting the name OUT THERE would’ve helped.
Rock Band 3 had those really dumb ads for a week or two, then nothing. You never heard of it again.
I really hope to see some fresh new ads for the re-release this year.
TSarcasm Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Activision even had a huge campaign surge for Black Ops (Times Square, CA busses, let alone the commercials). And that game would’ve sold millions even if there was a disclaimer on the box stating that you would die instantly when touching the disc.
Just too bad RB3 didn’t try a little harder. Revenue = Funding.
Yay, just in time for the 4000 song mark!…lol
I’d say give the game free to everyone & make money on good DLC and quality peripherals.
SebastianSB Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 9:31 am
I don’t think you can give out a game for free when it has licensed songs on it. They would probably have to release a “shell” game with no real content on it over XBLA if they wanted to make a free one.
BStu78 Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Of course you can give out a game for free with licensed songs. Just ask all of us with Guitar Hero: Van Halen sitting in little envelopes. A product being available to consumers at no cost (to be technical, bundled at no additional cost with a purchase), doesn’t mean it wasn’t paid for. Those licensing costs (as well as development, production, etc.) simply get budgeted as a loss or expense for the product it was bundled with. Indeed, I’m sure MadCatz would love to promote their bundles as having a free game, even if that’s all a slight of hand for consumers and the price isn’t really different than what it would be. The hang-up is more likely to come from the console makers and what their contracts with publishers allow in terms of pricing and marketing.
SebastianSB Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I guess we’re thinking on different channels here. When he said free I was thinking along the lines of a free download. Anything that’s put out for free on something like Xbox Live or Steam gets a massive amount of traffic. The licensing fees attached to all of that free music would likely bury Harmonix.
Epsilon Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I don’t see how that would be an issue with the licensing for the songs in the game as much as it would be an issue with Microsoft/Sony getting pissed about not getting a cut for all the bandwidth eaten up.
The way you’re describing it makes it sound like Harmonix has to pay more in licensing based on how many sales they make, when everything I’ve understood is that they pay up front and only have to renegotiate if it involves an entirely separate product.
Or to put it another way, I don’t see what difference it makes in terms of licensing costs between Activision giving away Van Halen and Harmonix/MC giving away Rock Band. The massive traffic is an entirely separate issue.
SebastianSB Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
From what I understand when music is used in any other medium you have to pay for the royalties each time. I assumed the same went for games, but I could easily be very wrong.
Maybe HMX can come up with a proper marketing campaign this Christmas, and in fairness, a bit of Rock Band on Christmas day to wake the parents, there’s nothing better
Youth in his pj’s on drums, daddy in his y-fronts and sunglasses on the guitar, mommy in the dressing gown with the mic, it’ll be awesome! 
This is actually pretty clever. If a game sits around for too long stores like Best Buy will put it on clearance. If they re-release it they increase its shelf life.
What about the option for a “Super” bundle? RB3 + 100/500/2000 DLC songs? The pricing would get weird but is there value in spending $200 on a game that comes with all content from RB1, RB2, AC/DC, and Green Day?
samjjones Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 9:51 am
Also an interesting idea, although packing in codes (that have a good amount of retail value on them) into boxes would probably result in a lot of theft. If you’re talking about including disk versions of those games, its possible that the physical inventory for such disks doesn’t exist anymore, either, and it wouldn’t be cost-effective to re-print them.
I think the bundle will be cheaper than you think. The “game” part of the bundle will likely be given away for free. Curious to see if they’ll be including two guitars plus keys, or just one guitar plus keys. If they can keep the whole thing under $100, and have a true “band in a box” package, they might get some rhythm game or even GH holdouts on-board. If this is $130 or whatever…I can’t see this selling very well.
Its also important to note that HMX likely saved themselves a lot of money by outsourcing the hardware production stuff to MadCatz and other partners. It costs a helluva lot more to produce a peripheral than it does to print and package a DVD. Whoever made that decision was very wise.
Re-read the press release. Bundle will be either 1) game, keys, and legacy guitar, or 2) game and Mustang.
I’m going to guess that these will be at the $99 price point.
Croq Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 11:49 am
I think this is the likely scenario.
smacd Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Agreed. disappointed at a lack of drums though. Not that I need the package, I just can’t find the RB3 drums anywhere. I’ve been resorting to craiglist to try to find some cheap replacements in good shape, since I can’t find new ones in stores.
Damn, i saw the headline and was hoping for an updated version of Rock Band 3. Like RB 3.5 or something. With a lot of the community grips fixed or something. Oh well.
Case Reply:
August 11th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Super Rock Band 3: Turbo Edition!
With there being no new GH or RB game to populate store shelves this holiday season, I don’t see any harm in giving this a try.
Paul Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Exactly. There isn’t much competition for the market, and at this point most of the Guitar Hero and older Rock Band bundles should have been cleared out long ago.
If Mad Catz can do this AND KEEP THE PRICE DOWN, the rerelease should succeed.
Not many places in the UK sell the RB instruments. HMV was the only shop in my area that had the Keyboard. Couldn’t see it anywhere else.
What would make it more enticing is to include the RB1 and RB2 songs in the bundle. Advertise it as such and people will see the value in it. Most people are confused about importing and or aren’t going to go out of their way to import them anyway.
Any chance that the Wii rerelease disc could be “fixed”, as in fixing crucial errors that cannot be patched? Because I was seriously considering a Squier, but refuse to spend $280 on something that will not score properly on my system. Some other fixes would be nice. I would be more than willing to purchase a $20 disk again to get those fixes.
I hope this means that Mad Catz sees a decent future for the franchise.
Dear Mad Catz,
Please remember that Canada exists this time.
No drum or microphone bundles?
I know it would be a pain for department stores, but I’d love to see a mic\drum\guitar\keys\mic stand\RB2-RB2 export code\RB3 game disc MEGA bundle. A $175 price tag, and it looks appealing to the noobs who haven’t snagged up the instruments yet.
Or even a Pro Pack would work, with drums\cymbals\three mics\keys\RB3.
Or maybe…
Just maybe…
BEATLES EXPORT FOR CHRISTMAS! (wishful thinking… :\)
If only it had been like this on launch it would have been easier for me to get my new instruments. Oh well.
I really hope it pays off for them. I am dubious about it and I really don’t want to watch another round of “music games are dead!!” cat calls, but it is worth a try I guess…
They should connect with Fender and try to get some additional Squier RB3 Stratocasters to the world as well!