Expensive Rhythm Games = The Genre's Death Nail

I have been wanting to rant about this since the confirmation of Guitar Hero 4 being a full band game like EA and Harmonix's Rock Band. Today, I finally got my Game Informer issue (pictured above) featuring the first official details and pics of Guitar Hero 4, which is coming out this fall. With Rock Band out, its competitors now want to have a piece of that pie and then nearly ripping off its ideas at the same time. I'll use Konami's recent announcement of their new rhythm game, Rock Revolution, as an example which is also a full band game being a Rock Band wannabe. Yeah, Konami and Benami pretty much started off the rhythm genre with Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Freaks, Drummania, and Beatmania, but returning to the genre is almost like a mistake with only having cover songs while your competition has now master tracks at this point due to their success and putting out another drum kit (pictured below) just to piss off consumers.

Back to Guitar Hero 4, the cover story on Game Informer pretty much announces the full band kit with a new drum kit (with a extra cymbal), a new guitar will likely be revealed at E3, and likely a new mic for vocals. I just don't know if originality would even exist in this genre now since Guitar Hero and Rock Band have taken over while over companies like THQ and Konami struggle to find their own rhythm game to compete. At least what separates Guitar Hero 4 and Rock Band (and maybe its sequel), is the opportunity to create songs. Mentioned in the GI story, Neversoft was aware of the mod community making their own note charts to various songs in the first GH games and wanted to make something that would cater to those peeps who do that. Even though vocals are not happening for these created songs, this could be something big if the competition does not rip it off within a year. Other than Create-A-Rocker, similar to what was seen in Tony Hawk's Create-A-Skater, a Band World Tour style career mode for all instruments (even bass), and a soundtrack of only mastered tracks that are not revealed due to the possibility that the competition will use it their own game, Guitar Hero 4 is looking pretty good so far even though they have to rip off Rock Band in some aspects.

With my thoughts on Guitar Hero 4 out of the way, let's begin the rant about these rhythm games being hella expensive. Assuming the full band bundles for Guitar Hero 4 and Rock Revolution being in the 150 - 200 dollar range when they are released, that is almost like buying a new console at this point if you are buying both (if Rock Band 2 is actually coming out this year with new instruments, this would be worst). I just don't know if the casual audience are ready to shell out more money for new instruments for their specific games. The same question can be raised for the hardcore audience specifically GH and RB fans, are they also willing to waste more money on new instruments? The whole compatibility issue between all these games is just pure BS and sooner or later, these companies have to eventually accept each other's instruments to be worked in the game to make fans happy. Then again, it all comes down to money and with EA and Activision especially, they just want as much of it as possible. If this trend keeps up of multiple full band games with separate band kits, I think this would be the death nail of the rhythm game genre.

Eventually, people like me will get tired of wasting money on more instruments of these full band games just because they want the money and the success that Guitar Hero and Rock Band had. The first Guitar Hero brought me to the rhythm genre and could possibly take me out of it. This is just another reason that gaming is expensive these days and publishers are willing to get back the money they spend on for developers to make these games. I guess I have to stick to one side rather than being on both (referring to Guitar Hero 4 and the inevitable Rock Band 2), but it will likely come down to the soundtrack that will be out on retail and the quality of downloadable content (which Neversoft claimed they will have a better strategy for DLC with GH4). Maybe I should buy a PS3 instead of wasting money on rhythm games this fall.