Jumping on the (Rock) Bandwagon?

Rock Band is but days away from it's European release, and I'm starting to get rather excited (It looks like Play.com aren't going to screw up my order and I should have it by Friday).

Rock Band's main competitor in the rhythm based music games would be the Guitar Hero series, ironically created by Rock Band developers Harmonix, which they developed until being bought by MTV Games after the release of Guitar Hero II. Activision, who owned the actual Guitar Hero IP decided to pass on the duty of developing Guitar Hero III to Tony Hawk's developer Neversoft.

Now Activision have begun publicly discussing their plans for Guitar Hero IV, and guess what? It's going to come with a drumkit and microphone. Sounds an awful lot like Rock Band to me. Not to be outdone by the team at Harmonix though, Activision have stated that their drums for GH4 will have no less than five drums and a bass drum pedal, that's one more than Rock Band, which has only four drums and a bass drum pedal.

Don't think the competition for Rock Band ends there though. Only last week Konami announced Rock Revolution, which from early reports looks like it's going to combine Guitar Freaks, Drummania and Karaoke Revolution, the games that start the whole rhythm based music game genre in the first place. And of course, Konami have to go one better than Guitar Hero IV, and have announced that their drumkit will have six drums and a bass drum pedal. I can't help but think that six drums is going to get awfully confusing.

Rock Band has been selling very, very well Stateside, so Harmonix have very little need to worry, for the moment. Things will mush tougher when Activision and Konami bring their efforts to the market. Rock Band 2 is already rumoured to be in the works, ready for release around Christmas time in the States, and as long as they stick to their proven formula, then I believe they'll be onto a winner.

One final thought for today. If Activision do go down the Band route that they're talking about at the minute, they'll not be able to call it Guitar Hero any more, since it's not just guitar based. They'll have to call it something like Rock Ba....oh, wait.