Microsoft favorite to buy Rock Band developer Harmonix?

[priteshmodi]

Joelcool7 said:

I think you give Harmonix alittle too much credit. Ther were other great music instrument games before GuitarHero and Rockband. Harmonix looks at the music genre and sees potential, they seem to like making things feel more real. They didn't want another Maracas or drums game they thought man we could do exactly what these guys are doing with Guitars and it would be a huge hit. Then they saw how much people loved faking to play the Guitar that they decided to go and give gamers drums and they saw how much success Sony was having with SingStar and decided why not give consumers all three experiances together. That is hardly innovation, then RockBand 3 with the real instruments well Power Gig thought of that too, they simply launched the idea everyone was having. Geez I was at PAX and I played the new game "The Gig" which is essentially the same thing as RockBand and Power Gig. Not to mention the other ones on display at PAX seriously their was like five.

The fact that they did these things and got them right before anyone else is what makes them a quality and visionary dev. It's much like Apple. The concept of the tablet was toyed with before Apple launched the iPad. The iPad did it right and thus is a huge success and credit is given to Apple for the tablet Marketplace. Same with the touch screen cell-phone. The LG Prada came before the iPhone but again Apple did it the way consumers wanted and enjoyed it. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and now Dance Central are experiencing the same type of success. Everything they've touched has been quality and genre redefining. It's engraved into the mainstream consumers' minds that Harmonix did it right and better than anyone on multiple occassions and that brand association with quality is something that's incredibly hard to change. Apple has had failures and shortcomings (antenna problems, faulty graphics chips in macbooks, etc.) but consumers still consider their products heavily and ignore these issues. If MS buys Harmonix and they create a new experience, they've got a great marketing back for whatever it is just by saying "They changed the music game industry and redefined dance games... From the creators of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Dance Central...". Yes there are competitors that are doing what Harmonix has already done but that's what they will be seen as by the mainstream; alternatives to the original.

Then theirs dancing. Konami and others have created DDR and other Dance games that defined and created a new genre of gaming. Natal gets announced and Harmonix is again not the first to come up with a great idea. Alongside Harmonix Konami the company that really brought us the dance Genre also has Dance Masters. Both products are nearly identacle except for the obvious better sound track for Dance Central and an obviously larger budget.

Again they are the first to execute the great idea well and that's really all that matters when it comes to mindshare. And market share follows mindshare. As far as being identical products, one clearly has taken the market by storm and will be getting a stronger following for the reasons mentioned above. 

But when has Harmonix actually created something unique that nobody else was doing? They had a niche market with RockBand, GuitarHero and now Dance Central. But they fail to hold onto that Niche, they don't offer consumers enough new content to drive future software. Many have said we expect Dance Central 2 in the next year or two if the first is successful. Then maybe they will expand into another music driven game I dunno, the music game developers  are grasping at straws with titles like DJHero for example. The music games industry is getting crowded and Harmonix does offer top of the line music based games but what else can they offer? Not to mention others offer those same experiances and more and more studios are playing follow the leader entering an over loaded market.

Harmonix created the music game Frequency which was launched in 2001 and a follow up called Amplitude  in 2003. That's extremely early in the creation of the music game genre. It's undeniable that they played a big role in carving out the genre and an even bigger role in making it a mainstream success with Guitar Hero. Benefits of this console gen is a short term way of looking at things. When next gen rolls around the entire playing field will again be a blank slate and MS and Harmonix can simply jump on and establish market dominance in the entire genre. Competitors will again only be seen as alternatives (looking back at the smartphone market) and Harmonix will find success due to their established name as long as their products remain quality. In the meantime they may help MS define their experiences on new markets. Other companies have done music/gesture games on handhelds. MS just releaased Windows Phone 7. There's a perfect opportunity for both companies to establish dominance and appeal in a growing market and again finding a way of doing it right for that format. There are a number of things Harmonix can help MS with. It could even boil down to creating something special for WMP and WMC which would only be available for Windows operating platforms.

When Microsoft is cutting staff closing studios and letting others go independant it doesn't make sense for them to spend over 90-mill (Estimated price MTV wants) on a studio that doesn't actually offer any intellectual properties. A large reason Microsoft bought Rare and Bungie was for their IP's it wasn't the staff in the studio so much as the marketability of the games. Here's what Microsoft knows would happen if they bought Harmonix, several staff probubly many high ranking and critical ones would choose to leave the company and form new studios. They would have to clean house and hire tons of new staff with little to know experiance with Harmonix titles. Then they would be left with a studio that has two IP's and none of its critical staff left.

They were restructuring MGS during the economy meltdown. The closures and sell-offs were known well before they actually happened. Ensemble knew a good 8 months or so before Halo Wars even launched that it would be there last project as Ensemble. MS even helped existing employees form a new studio and are funding their first project as I said earlier. You can't simply look at only the closures. Along the way they also created the internal Fire team and 343 Studios. So really the only loss in terms of first party is Bizarre Creations.  You also speak as if it's a guarantee Harmonix will fall apart if bought. Did Ensemble fall apart when initally bought by MS? Did Bungie? Bizarre? Rare is but one example where that happened. It has equal chance og going either way. That's also not an excuse for why MS shouldn't buy them as that's equally possible for any potential buyer.

Now lets say on the off chance that all the staff is retained. What games can they do outside their genre (Music/Rythm games?) I mention Ensemble because they were very similiar they created great AAA quality RTS games now they closed and guess what the staff forming new studios all want to make RTS games. It was in Microsoft's best interest to groom Robot Entertainment is taking over for Ensemble with AOE.

It doesn't necessarily have to be outside of their genre. It just has to be different to what they've already done. They could be used to offer their talents to emerging or untouched markets (Windows Media and Windows Phone 7) or something like making a cross platform music studio that syncs up between your 360, Windows Phone and PC through your Live account. Something where you can generate music based on pre-recorded sounds, synthesized musical notes of a plethora of instruments and be able to publish it to popular online services, put it up for sale on a marketplace.... Pretty much doing for music what youtube has done for self created videos.

It just doesn't make much sense to buy a studio who has never actually been outside the music games market. Without any IP's to offer (RockBand barely sells now) in a saturated music market. Where is the benefit for Microsoft?

It's not so much the products they have released that I'd be interested in if I was MS. It's the skills that they've picked up (identifying user interface experience problems and overcoming them excellently, creating an unnoticed marketplace, knowing their music and sounds, programming new ideas from scratch, etc.). These skills would allow them to come up with great products based on great ideas in more than just the gaming realm. Hell, I'm a 22 year old kid on the interwebs coming up with these ideas. Imagine would MS and Harmonix could think up. I would be absolutely honored if they read this and even considered one of my ideas good enough to pursue.

This is my first actual civil discussion on this site and I must say I'm greatly enjoying it. Looking forward to some great rebuttals.