This is such an old argument. Summary, Harmonix and Activision is both at fault. The reason the 360 Les Pauls works because Activision wasn't stupid enough to release a patch to brick those guitars and not come off looking like greedy corporate jerks. Believe me, Activision had the patch to brick the guitar so they would only work with Guitar Hero 3 games but I am pretty sure that Microsoft told them don't do it. And since Microsoft is running the show for now, they dare not piss them off and there exisiting customer base (Guitar Hero 2 owners) by making the people buy new Les Pauls when they had working X-plorers. But because PS3 never had a Guitar Hero peripheral released for it, they could "redesign" the interface so it would be incompatible with any game that wasn't Guitar Heroes'. Harmonix didn't know this or didn't know until it was to late and they had to release Rock Band as is until they could figure out a patch. They got a patch but Activision told Sony not to release it or they would suffer the lack of support from them. Sony suffering from the lack of sales isn't going to give Microsoft any more advantage that they already have. Sony held the patch and let it be known it was because Activision didn't want it released.
Now Rock Band is set to be release for the Wii and Activision and Harmonix is still at a stand still with neither side want to give to the others demands. Activision wants to get paid for Rock Band sells and Harmonix doesn't want to pay them for use a peripheral. To avoid a legal battle, Activision have stated they won't (not that they can't) put compatibility for the Wii Les Paul for legal reasons.
But the best part of all of this is GIBSON! They, the partners of Guitar Hero Red Octane, are suing everyone for a patent they sat on and didn't use ( don't get me started with patent trolls and how the patent office needs serious restructuring) but will get a chuck of license money from both of them. Everyone screws everyone...
But hey....
I'm just saying...
