Rock Band Developer Talks About Backwards Compatibility

The music game genre is growing by leaps and bounds these days, as it has already surpassed the sports genre and it definitely looks like the sky's the limit. With titles such as Wii Music or Lips, which bring the music games on any platform out there, the growth of this market will be very big.

But although developers are releasing products now, it is a bit too late to struggle for supremacy, as the two massive titles that brought a lot of innovation in this genre, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, have a big fanbase. Although Activision's Guitar Hero was the first music game that became popular, Harmonix's Rock Band brought true innovations and quickly following on the same path.

Things like the ability to play drums or vocals, and DLC (Downloadable Content) released on a weekly basis gave fans an incredible opportunity to become their favorite rockstars. Recently, the developer has released the sequel to Rock Band, which promises to give players an even better experience and to introduce them to new features and innovations.

One of the biggest selling points of Rock Band 2 was the fact that it featured backwards compatibility, which gave players the chance to play the songs they bought from the Harmonix music store on both their original game and on this new title. This feature was very innovative, and Dan Teasdale, the lead director for Rock Band has recently said that this features was a main goal during the creation of this sequel.

"We wanted to make a platform for experiencing music. We're musicians first and game developers second. We're not focused on pushing a new SKU every year, we want to build a music collection the same way you build a CD collection or a digital music collection, and so with that in mind it's a no-brainer to support it because you've already bought this music, why shouldn't you play it on future games? Why shouldn't I be able to play my Rock Band music in Rock Band 2 because I already bought them? It's more just making sure you have this central library of songs you can play."

Some very interesting facts that go to prove that if developers really want to offer gamers a worthwhile experience, then they really can come up with great features.