During E3, Bill Kassoy, senior vice president of marketing for Activision, spoke with Next Generation about Guitar Hero III and Activision’s feelings towards its direct competitor, EA’s Rock Band.
Kassoy stated that while Rock Band will feature more instruments, Guitar Hero III will still reign on top because of its "proven experience". In other words, Guitar Hero is already an established brand while Rock Band will be the start of a brand-new series for EA. If Rock Band doesn’t catch on, it may be a big loss for EA.
In addition, Kassoy said that while Harmonix (who developed the first two Guitar Hero games for Activision) jumped ship to work on Rock Band, they only have experience in software development. This suggests that Rock Band’s hardware and software may not match up to Guitar Hero III.
Lastly, Kassoy pointed out the massive price difference for Rock Band and its controllers — guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and the lesser required controllers for Guitar Hero. In the end, Rock Band will surely cost a lot more than Guitar Hero II.
In a follow-up story on GameDaily BIZ, Activision announced that since its release on the Xbox 360 –April 2007, Guitar Hero II sold over 300,000 downloadable song packs over Xbox Live.
In response to the overwhelming success, Activision won’t be changing the downloadable song pack prices once Guitar Hero III is released. Currently, song packs contain three songs and cost 500 Microsoft points ($6.25) each.
