Harmonix's unexpected announcement of a Green Day-themed Rock Band has everyone talking, and not necessarily in a good way.
It's a smart choice, says Tom Chick over at Fidgit:
Meanwhile, Bill Harris at Dubious Quality finds the choice of bands puzzling:
First off, it's important to point out that one reason that Green Day is Harmonix's next single-band release is surely that the band is on board with the Grand Vision: Every song from the disc will be exportable into the main* Rock Band* platform, unlike Beatles or any of Activision's single-band Guitar Hero discs.
Of course, if there's an extra fee involved there, that makes a difference because it effectively raises the price of the disc for anyone who's fully bought in to the Rock Band lifestyle already.
And really, it all comes down to price. Pundits are agonizing over whether Green Day is "worth it." We can't know that unless we know how much this disc costs. There's a price at which most anything is "worth it." Are people going to line up to pay $60 just for Green Day's greatest hits? I don't see that happening. But if we're looking at something priced roughly around the level of a Track Pack disc, it makes a bit more sense.
In short, any band that's worth a CD or DVD should be worth a Rock Band disc, just as long as the rules stay in place: Like a CD, the tracks should be rippable to a more convenient format, and the price should reflect the fact that the game itself is already available in a dozen other formats and the narrow content is a big restriction on the total audience.
Photo: GreenDay.com
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