14 DAY TRIAL // Guitar Hero 5 is out. The Beatles Rock Band is set to launch on September 9. So the companies creating those games are already talking about their next projects, which, in the case of Harmonix, is a creation suite called Rock Band Network. And what's more interesting than the head of a rival project talking about the recently announced endeavor?
Brian Bright, who is the project director working on Guitar Hero 5, told MTV Multiplayer that, “As far as we can tell the RBN is not included in a[n] RB product and is not a creative tool set. It appears to be a pathway for independent artists to potentially get their music uploaded to the online store, where it can be sold for a fee. It seems to require expensive software and complicated tools to track music that has already been created through traditional means. Also it appears that the RBN requires the multitrack masters, that is it requires at least 7 or 8 tracks of audio for instrument separation. This raises the barrier to entry considerably.”
Of course, Bright was trying to contrast that with the music-creation capacities, which are already integrated into the Guitar Hero series. The editor allows people to put together tracks for all instruments, but no vocal elements can be used and the process is rather simple. Certainly, the results sought after are not to completely replicate a track, but to approximate most of its features enough so that it can be played in the music simulator. Arguably, Rock Band Network will be the more powerful product, while Guitar Hero will hold on to the advantage of being easy to use.
With most analysts agreeing on the fact that the bright period of music gaming is behind them, both Activision and Harmonix are looking for the next big thing and they both seem to have settled on music creation. The difference is that Harmonix believes that the tools should be aimed at those who are already musicians, while Activision, true to its nature, is set to target all music lovers.