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greenmedic88 on 29 January 2008
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Worst case scenario would be publish extra discs of music, either under different themes (like GH 80's) or as a compilation containing the current catalog of RB songs (or selection of songs) in the database.

Figure they charge $6 for a three pack of songs by individual artists. Charging $30-40 for a decent compilation isn't outrageous. The question becomes whether Harmonix would want to publish additional content in this manner, keeping in mind licensing fees for each disc published and then covering production, packaging and distribution costs. DLC is much favorable to publishers in this respect.

Paying $160 for a static game would be less than ideal since one of the biggest novelties of RB was the constant inclusion of new tracks. Take that away and you end up waiting a year between releases, which is acceptable, but still under par set by XBL and PSN. Occasional new releases justify the initial package cost, but still does not offer the immediate delivery system provided through DLC.

DLC using SD memory cards seems ideal. Space is not an issue since the average buyer isn't going to buy enough extra tracks to fill even a 512MB card even at 40MB per track. If so, buy a 1GB card for what? $20 or less? The only issue with using SD cards to store licensed tracks is DRM. Harmonix, nor the recording labels that own the rights to the music itself, are not going to write carte blanche for anyone downloading paid for tracks to distribute as they see fit.

Under the current Wii operating system, anything that can be copied to SD card is now free game to be transferred to any other Wii console.

As such, you cannot transfer download purchases off the Wii. At least I haven't found a way to legally do this. All my classic games are locked on my console and cannot be transferred to SD card by standard (legal) means.

Unless Nintendo updates its file transfer/format system (maybe with a proprietary format for SD cards used with the Wii), that is the real hurdle for DLC.

No point really in arguing about it since it's not reality yet anyway. Either way, not publishing RB for the Wii still equals lost sales.