Rock Band for Wii finally announced. I think I'll pass.

The Game Room
41

This console generation has been extremely interesting. It’s getting harder and harder to make blanket statements about the success or failure of any of the major consoles. Wii dominates system sales but has (arguably) the weakest software library. Xbox 360 and its Western-centric library rules the USA but has underperformed in other regions. PlayStation 3 had an extremely shaky start but seems to be gaining momentum and (again arguably) has the most important upcoming exclusives and the strongest potential for future growth and staying power.

42

Hopefully storage of downloaded songs isn’t the problem, if it was they could ship Rock Band Wii with a 1 or 2 GB USB flash drive.

I don’t really see the appeal of playing Rock Band online, but I would be a bit let down that my console didn’t support it.

43

Rock Band is most fun when you can get four people together to play all of the instruments. A lot of people can’t get four folks together in their own home that often, but it’s fairly easy to form a full band online. My wife and I will sometimes play with actual friends of ours online, and sometimes we’ll form a band with random people online. The highest scores come when all four instruments are going, and it’s just more fun that way.

44

It seems the issue with DLC is that the Wii game is a PS2 port. The PS2 version of the game was outsourced, and is missing a few features. One of the key features is character customisation and the players performing in real time. In the PS2 version, the performances are pre recorded videos, so PS2 songs use more space than the 360 and PS3 versions because they have to include the video. That’s also the reason character customisation is missing, because the customer character can’t appear in the performances.

So it’s really a financial decision to take the quickest route to having a Wii version by porting the PS2 version rather than creating the Wii version from the ground up. I guess they think that the extra time and money creating a ground up Wii version won’t result in significantly more sales than if they take the cheap route of porting the PS2 version. They’re probably right, but it’s not good for the fans.