http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/885/885168p1.html

Interested to see more details when they officially unveil it at E3. I wasn't expecting a sequel this year, but I'm pretty happy there will be one. Since I already have the instruments, dropping the normal $60 to get a disc full of new songs and improvements (a newer, streamlined Band World Tour for one) is a no-brainer.

Sounds like there's no music creator in this one, but whatever. The guy says they want to make sure those kinds of tools are done in a very complete and user friendly manner, and frankly nobody knows more about making music games than Harmonix, so I trust him when he says they want to do it just right. When they decide to sink the time into that feature (perhaps for Rock Band 3?) I'm sure it'll be highly intuitive and thorough. Who knows, they may even surprise us and have that ready to go in time for this game.

I'm sure there will be no shortage of info once E3 hits. The guy says they have an amazing playlist with big names (Zeppelin? Beatles?) so if they deliver more top notch songs, I'm a happy consumer. Oh, and the RB1 DLC will carry over and work on RB2, so that's fantastic as well.

Not having a create-a-song feature may hurt them critically and at retail versus GH4.

However, I love that the DLC will work with RB2 (GH3 DLC will work with GH4, but there's not as much), but I wish they'd allow exporting of Rock Band 1 songs to the hard drive so you didn't have to change discs.

I think the absence of song creation will have a little impact, but in terms of gameplay itself (actually playing songs) I think Rock Band can compete with GH:WT in pretty much every aspect. Have to wait and see hwo the two World Tour modes, or whatever they'll be called this time around, compare.

I understand not letting you export RB1 songs to the hard drive, because then everyone who has RB1 would do that, pass it to a friend, who then repeats the process, etc, etc, and nobody would ever have to buy the game again. Now, if they would do something like offering the entire RB1 setlist as DLC for say $20-30, I think lots of folks would do it to have all the songs accessible all the time. (Plus it would let those folks picking up RB2 that didn't buy RB1 have access to all the songs without having to buy a physical copy of the game.)

I think one thing that will allow RB to compete with GH at retail is the fact that they've already sold the expensive bundle to the majority of folks who want this kind of game. Now, those people need only buy a $60 game to keep playing RB, as opposed to anyone wanting GH:WT, who now face the daunting $180 price tag that Rock Band buyers faced a year ago. GH:WT will have to absolutely blow me away to pry me from a proven solid commodity in Rock Band and Harmonix.

Also, RB2 is coming out in September for the 360, which shocks me. That's a damn fast turnaround for any game.

@Frodaddyg,

I think WT might actually succeed in blowing some folks away, have a look:

IGN First Look: http://wii.ign.com/articles/882/882958p1.html

It is an article for the Wii version but it sounds like it will be the same across all consoles. Its worth a full read.

I'd rather swap discs than pay $20-30, but then it would only cost me 1/4/th that currently due to sharing. However, the potential loss isn't that great. Sharers would still have to buy instruments; and perhaps code the export to only work with RB2, therefore forcing them to buy that game, at least. I think that would work nicely.

But whatever, if I have to swap discs for a few songs that I'm not tired of by that point, then so be it. I love that the DLC will be compatible.

I love that for GH4/GH3 DLC as well, because most likely I'll end up wanting to buy that game and getting some GH3 DLC I've missed out on. 2 sets of instruments and 2 DDR pads is really going to get crowded...

Yeah, I made a thread about the Game Informer cover feature awhile back. It listed the new features. They seem to be copying Rock Band and improving upon most aspects of it. I hope Rock Band keeps up or stays ahead with most aspects, but this youtube-like sharing of created songs in GH4 seems like it'll be the deal breaker for a lot of people. I think as frodaddyg says, though, that already having a large userbase of Rock Band bundle owners and coming out fairly soon might help balance that out.

Yeah I pretty much agree with all of this.

RB owners already have a large investment and the WT features will have to be fleshed out enough, lik eFrod said, to "wow" him into wanting to spend even more cash. For an existing RB owner I definitely don't think its a clear cut choice, its the GH and especially Wii owners who have a "no-brainer" so to speak right now..but even that might change if Harmonix announces some new features for RB2 that we don't know about yet.

I've read it, and it sounds interesting, but the gameplay additions aren't that big a deal to me. I mean, adding one drum and putting the cymbal pieces on the set is cool, but not "make me want to drop another $180" cool. Also, there's no vocals for the user-created content, which is incredibly weak, seeing as the most fun parts of the game is playing it with 4 people. Why would I sink time into creating a song that can't be fully utilized by the entire game I bought to play it on?

I think WT should be fine, but I don't think the innovations are that mindblowing. The new guitar neck note bender thing looks interesting, but not all that revolutionary. The drums look cool, but again, not exactly revolutionary.

I think there's a very distinct percentage of gamers that are hardcore into music games, which is why Guitar Hero is such a resounding success. The problem for GH this time is that they're launching a far more expensive product than the usual GH games, and there's already a similar game that many gamers bought less than a year ago. I mean, they're offering minor improvements over some of the things RB did, but it's not as simple as a new Madden game releasing, where a lot of folks will say "What the hell, I can afford to drop $60 for updated rosters". This is close to a $200 investment, and they're entering into a market where their target market (the kind of folks who are willing to drop that kind of money on this kind of game), have probably already done so.

I'll have to see how GH turns out when it releases. I have RB for the 360, but if GH really impresses, maybe I'll pick it up for the Wii or something. It's going to have to do a lot though, to make me (and I'm guessing a lot of other folks) consider it worthwhile to have two full sets of fake instruments in my living room.

Yeah, I agree with you guys. Also, I think we'll get a lot clearer picture of RB2's full upgrades and features at E3 when the official unveiling happens.

As I said in my last post, I think not having vocals in the created songs is a giant letdown. I'm primarily the vocalist when I'm playing with my friends (although I'm also the best guitar player of the group. ;) It's just no one else can sing a lick.) so the idea of all these possibly cool songs that I can't play with all the parts is quite disheartening. I do love the concept of song creation and sharing, I just think it's painfully incomplete if it doesn't let you create songs for a "full band".

I would still go with the 360 version if you do get it, due to storage problems on the Wii. If you have a large SD card and/or don't download Wiiware games, then perhaps that's not an issue for you. As sqrl says, I think for Wii owners it's a no-brainer right now. Which is sad. I sort of root for Rock Band because harmonix started both series. They haven't caught up on the Wii, yet, though. We should know by E3 what the specifics are in the game, though. If they do get the Beatles, that could be a major factor as well. This is going to be a major battle of the bands, I think.

If someone comes out with a solution to make the guitars work for both games, I would definitely buy a $90 drum bundle for GH4. At least mics will work for both, heh.