Well on one hand it's great that they are delivering this in some capacity, but it certainly isn't an attractive system for me.

Better than full-priced sequels, I'd say, but yeah, kind of meh.

It would be nice if you could transfer the songs from this disc to the Wii's internal memory or an SD card for use with the main Rock Band game disc, but disc-swapping isn't all that appealing.  Then again, Activision isn't even bothering to do this much with GH3.

LOL *AHEM*

At $1.50 per song, isn't the price average cheaper here than for most DLC songs?

Kinda "eh" due to disc swapping hassle. However, it's nice that they're putting out new content.

Oh, is it a bit cheaper than what the 360 and PS3 are doing?

Isn't the average price $2 per song on the 360 and PS3, and $5.49 for a set of 3 songs? This is cheaper, but you can't pick and choose.

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I liked it better when the lack of extra songs was going to make me not buy this game, now I need to come up with $200.

I'll give them credit for at least making the content available in some fashion.  They could have just done nothing at all.  But why the hell is an online console like the Wii getting denied online content?  But then we could compile quite a list of questions like those.

Does anyone still try to defend Nintendo's decision to not go online with the Cube?  You look at lag problems and friend codes and then stuff like this and it's clear that an extra gen of online experience would have been a ton of help.

LOL at Faith No More We Care A Lot

Does anyone really care about pre-Patton FNM?

FIXED

Also I completely agree with Ian. Just look at the PS2 and what internet service it had. Then compare it to the ps3 service. A generations experience can be very valuable and the Wii's online service looks meagre and backward compared with what Sony and Microsoft are offering.

I do applaud the decision to at least give Wii owners a chance to get the DLC, albeit in a less than ideal way.

I knew someone was going to say that.  :)

By no means am I a FNM fan, but still, pre-Patton?  What the Hell?  They might as well have given us Anne's Song.

For the uneducated, check out the videos below.  Some of the most OMG what is this 80s music you'll ever hear.

We Care A Lot
Anne's Song

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I'm not sure GC being online would have helped much because previous to that Nintendo had online experience. We have to realize Nintendo does their own thing regardless of experience.

Should sell Wii "albums" on 256MB SD cards that can be loaded while the RockBand disc is in...

That's a cool idea. How many songs do you think you could get on each card?

I haven't a clue... anyone who has the 360/PS3 version have any idea what size the downloads are?

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My best guess would be the tiny amount of storage available in the console.  The other system has gigs of storage built in.  The Wii has, what, a gig or two?  Mine's already almost full with VC games and save data.  Yeah, they could make it save to a SD card, but the player would need to have one first.  With the discs, anybody who wants it can purchase it and use it. 

512MB

Let's say a RockBand track is 4 times the size of a Guitar Hero track.  If a GH track is 10 MB, then our pretend RB tracks are 40MB.  So, 20 tracks would be 800MB, which, I suppose, would require a 1GB SD card.  Anyone know the cost to manufacture a 1 GB SD Card vs. a DVD?

And that's assuming it couldn't fit on a 512 card... Quick search shows 512MB cards selling for about $5/each.  I know it'd be more expensive than DVDs, but it'd be way more user-friendly...

Well talk about hitting a shot in the dark...

Not quite the way I envisioned, but hey, at least it beats getting absolutely nothing.

Also very user-corruptible.

Where are you getting your info from?

There are a lot of points that I am surprised haven't been made yet in this thread.

- This content could easily be included with the Wii version of Rock Band as an apology for the six month delay, lack of online play and DLC, and $10 surcharge over the identical PS2 version.  Selling these songs separately on a disc isn't a truce offer to Wii owners, it's just an attempt to take more money from you.  There's nothing wrong with capitalism, but don't pretend it's charity.

- It's only a good deal if you would have bought all twenty of these songs a la carte through DLC.  Let's say the average person is only interested in half of this song list.  They could have downloaded just the ten songs they want for about $18 through DLC, but this package forces them to spend extra money for songs they don't want.  That's the whole point of Rock Band DLC -- you only have to buy the songs you want.

- Judging by the song list in Volume 1, there are a good many DLC songs that we'll never have access to anyway.  For instance, only one of the Grateful Dead songs is on the list, and I don't see them putting the rest on Volume 2.  This delivery method also precludes full album downloads, which are starting soon on the DLC service.

All good points, thankfully I have a 360 with Rock Band so I don't need to worry.

All good points, thankfully I play real guitar so I don't need to worry. ;)

Since SD cards can be made read-only with the switches on the side, I would assume that they could simply be constructed to always be read-only.

Selling pre-loaded content on SD cards is not at all cost-effective.  Flash memory costs far more to manufacture than does printing a DVD.  It also doesn't fix any of the problems with this whole situation except that you could avoid switching discs... but if you could load songs directly from an SD card, Harmonix should just be able to deliver the songs online and let you save them to your own SD card, which is the totally obvious solution that is for some reason being ignored or thwarted.

I wonder if what I've heard may be the case. Maybe hardware wise the SD Cards are way behind the times when it comes to reading them. Look at how long it takes to copy something to an SD Card, that is NOT normal, leading me to believe this may be a hardware issue.

I'm pretty sure the reason it takes so long to copy a VC game to an SD card is the process of encrypting the file and not because of a hardware problem. It takes a couple seconds for Excite Truck to start playing an MP3 that  you have it load from the SD card, that would be a lot longer if there were a problem with the card reader.

Lol flash/SD is 100 times faster than hard drives or CDs.  Just that its slow on the Wii, not much else.

Well hopefully you are right. I think I'd actually be really mad at Nintendo if it turns out they put gimped SD Card reader hardware in the Wii.

lolling so hard

PS: Rock Band is still not released in Aus on the other platforms. TBA 2008 actually. God knows when the Wii version will get here. This news just makes me even more bitter. I'd be happy with "No DLC" because I'd already have to fork out AU$300 (estimate) for the parts.

Plus, I can't wait for them to turn around and charge $50-$70 for the 20 songs on here, which is about as appealing as a punch in the face.

No thanks.

http://kotaku.com/387447/samba-de-amigo-to-get-paid-dlc

Oh look, Samba de Amigo will have downloadable content.  I wonder how they figured it out when glorious Harminox was unable to...

I'm glad they are at least they are doing something, which is more than you can say for Activision.  I won't be buying it due to all the reasons mentioned though.

Activision's game was released day and date with other versions, has online play, isn't needlessly overpriced, and the Wii version actually has the best controller.  The lack of DLC is far more understandable given when GH3 was released; it makes no sense for Rock Band, which is coming out after WiiWare and the announcement of Pay to Play.

Ahmen brother, ahmen!

WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP IGNORING MY POST?

Because your avatar is of an ugly character in Double Dragon.

Because it doesn't really add anything to the discussion.  I think everybody assumed it would be a standalone game, which is all that link says.  You'll still have to swap discs if you feel like playing a song that's on the other one.

I don't play music games but I like this idea better than DLC songs. I'm going to have to make a post about how hard drives for consoles do more harm than good.

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I wouldn't call Rock Band a glorified Guitar Hero. The inclusion of all the other instruments and the group dynamic it creates when playing all of them together is really something else. In my opinion they both satisfy different urges. GH doesn't really make for a great multiplayer game, it is alright, but nothing better than that. Rock Band's main focus is the multiplayer mode, and it succeeds in creating the experience of feeling like a band.

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Oh, in that case I completely misunderstood what everyone was complaining about.  I thought your fears were you would have to load the game using the regular disc and then switch to the Track Pack Vol. 1 disc.

Also, your complaints are completely stupid.  Do you plan to complain when playing Guitar Hero 4 and then you suddenly want to play something from Guitar Hero 3, so you have to switch discs?  Then why are complaining about this?  Why not just complain that you have to switch discs when you want to play a different game?

Oh no!  I'm playing Mario Kart and now I want to play Brawl!  Why do I have to switch discs?!  This is stupid.

Not as stupid as whining that no one's paying attention to you.  ;)

Anyway, it's a valid complaint in that it's yet another feature missing from the Wii version of the game.

You're just mad because my bear is scarier than yours.

People are going to ignore you again because of yet another creepy avatar.

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Do you honestly believe there won't be a Rock Band 2, 3, etc?  You're living in a fantasy.

EA (and any other company in its right mind) will continue to release full sequels as long as it's profitable to do so.

Not to a Coulrophobic salmon.

Guitar Hero IV is basically going to be Rock Band see here.

I don't know... I guess I just view Rock Band as basically glorified karaoke... and we all know what HORRIBLE karaoke videos play along with the songs. I'm used to completely ignoring everything on the TV screen when playing/singing except for the stuff that matters. I don't identify with the visuals at all.

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partying bears aren't meant to be scary, jerk!

This isn't DLC, this is from what I can tell a "not-exactly-a-sequel" with new songs and identical game play.  I don't see why GH3 doesn't do this, and while they're at it, release GH1 and 2 for the Wii.  As you say, Guitar Hero 3 is the better choice on Wii.  But if guitar games are your thing, you're better off with an Xbox 360 for the sole fact that you can buy both games and get 2 interchangeable controllers out of the deal.  Why Sony and Nintendo didn't force them to be compatible is a consumer hurting mystery.

Is it creepy or is it the best avvie ever?

Isn't that what Guitar Hero Aerosmith is?

Not to mention Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s.  I bought that when it came out, and it didn't feel like it was worth it somehow.  I can't really explain why, but it's one of the reasons I think downloadable content is more effective at fulfilling the desire for more than releases like this.

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No DLC on the Wii version actually makes sense for the same reason as no DLC on the PS2 version and it's not because of lack of storage.  Unlike the 360/PS3 versions what goes on in the backgrounds during songs isn't realtime, it's FMV.  Every song in the game has it's own FMV which in and of itself shot the game disc size way farther up than it would've been otherwise.  Guitar Hero 3 Wii isn't dual layer, Rock Band Wii will be which approximately the same number of songs at launch.  If the DLC was just the song with the model animation data like it is elsewhere that would be one thing, but with this and the PS2 one it would be the song, AND it's video which depending on the quality of the footage could range from anywhere between 50 and 70MB just for one song.  That's just not gonna happen, especially on Wii.

So now instead of downloading it, we're getting the DLC in DVD form.  Meaning we are STILL getting the songs, except you may have to disc swap.  So WHAT'S the problem again?  *rolls eyes*

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Technically you wouldn't have to suffer through the rest of them, just pay for them.

I never thought of that. Since Guitar Hero has noticeably worse graphics than the 360/PS3 versions I'm guessing that means it uses real time graphics and GH4 on the Wii could have real DLC, right?