An Unlikely Battle of the Bands

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Author: Ben Karl
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The strange symbiosis between EA's Rock Band and Activision's Guitar Hero 3 is creating a lot of tension between rival companies.

These guys have no idea how to play Rock Band.

The original creators of Guitar Hero, Harmonix and Red Octane, have split to form their own respective "bands". The rival groups are, of course, EA and MTV's Rock Band and Activisions Guitar Hero 3. The two games, while seemingly separated at birth, will compete against each other this holiday season. So now the speculation begins, which game will emerge victorious?

GameDaily conducted exclusive interviews with both Frank Gibeau, head of EA, and Will Kassoy, head of Activision. Although only their interview with Gibeau has been posted, (Kassoy's is coming soon) they do have an interesting article contrasting each exec's holiday predictions.

Gibaeu prefers EA's competitive nature and compares the Rock Band scenario to past ventures such as their rise to Sporting game masterdom. He states:

"In EA Sports [for example], when you go up against competition, it just brings the best out in an organization, so when we go Guitar Hero versus Rock Band, we like our chances in terms of the people that we're working with, Harmonix and MTV. These are world class organizations, and then you combine that with the fact that we think we have very unique product positioning in that it's a rock band."

I think it's all about accessibility. We know that Rock Band might cost about $200 while Guitar Hero 3 will likely stay around $60 for those who already own a guitar. Rock Band is being released on the three next gens while Guitar Hero 3 is coming out on the PS2 also. The PS2 version is going to be huge for Guitar Hero 3 and, even though I'm looking to get Rock Band on the Wii, I think Guitar Hero 3 will come on top in sales.

Hey, Thanks: GameDaily

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LMG

Posted at: 08/09/07 at 1:42 PM PST

I still say they need to cut back on the weed, $200 is just too much for a game, given that it comes whit the controllers, but still how much does it really cost if you were to buy the drums and crap separately?