When it comes to DLC content Rock Band is king. On an almost weekly basis, new songs and even full albums have been rolled out to keep the play experience of each Rock Band iteration going strong. With Rock Band 3 adding a new Pro Mode to the mix the assumption was that Harmonix was going to charge an additional fee for all Rock Band 3 DLC, but that is not entirely the case.
Pro Mode gives gamers the closest experience to really rocking out possible by providing them the option of a real six-string guitar to play on. Since the six-string guitar peripheral is a completely new creation of Hamonix’ it would seem like the biggest task to develop songs for and as such is going to have its DLC sold separately.
All other DLC songs will still fall into the regular pricing category and will include the Pro-modes for keyboard and drums, but the Pro-mode DLC for guitar will cost an extra $1 to gamers.
A completely understandable decision on Harmonix’ part as I am sure that not only do they expect the demand for the Pro-mode songs to be high, but that redesigning the note charts for guitar is surely a time consuming task. Of course those dollars are going to add up considering the waves of content Harmonix loves to produce, but Harmonix will only include Pro-Mode DLC for songs where learning the guitar charts is actually a challenge. There goes my chance of a five star on Pro-Mode.
For me, being able to give it the old college try at learning guitar is fueling my intense anticipation for Rock Band 3 and knowing that Harmonix isn’t going to exploit gamers’ desire for songs that support Pro-Mode gives me even greater faith in the company. Rock on.
Do you feel that the Pro-Mode guitar DLC should come included with one download or do you understand Harmonix’ motivations in separating the two?
Rock Band 3 releases October 26th on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS. Harmonix has yet to comment on the pricing of past Rock Band and Rock Band 2 songs with Pro-Mode included, but expect an announcement closer to launch time.
Source: IGN