Rock Band (Wii)

Popular franchise gets new little brother
6/23/2008 5:56 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 4

Pretend you still own an eight-track tape player.

I'm not saying that you do. But imagine that you not only have an eight-track player, but that it is the only music device you own. And no matter how much you talk up the virtues of eight-track, deep down you know that you really ought to buy a turntable or even a CD player to go along with it.

And then imagine you find out that the Rolling Stones have released their swan-song album on eight-track. Never mind that it's been out for months and months on CD and via iTunes. Just when you thought about giving up on your beloved music machine, you suddenly have a reason to hang on.

This, I would imagine, pretty much sums up how Wii owners feel about the arrival of Rock Band on their little white gaming system. It's cool, but just cool in a sort of sloppy seconds sort of way.

Anyone who actually freaked at the idea that Harmonix, the guys who made Frequency, Amplitude and Guitar Hero, were actually going to make a game with guitar, bass, vocals and drums, long ago scraped up the cash for a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 to enjoy the game when it launched last year. Even the hordes of marginal music fans who just happened to own a next-gen console picked up the Rock Band "Special Edition" box and a case of beer at their local Wal-Mart in a desperate attempt to get people to come over and hang out and play games.

By the time that Rock Band washed up on the seemingly deserted shore of the Wii, you can only wonder, "Who's gonna play this thing?"

A couple of possible answers come to mind, and the minor changes made to the game during its import from the PS3 and 360 to the Wii make much more sense in this context.

So why the Wii?

Answer 1: Abject greed. Why sell to most console gamers when you can sell to all of them? The co-publisher, EA, has a long track record of porting anything they can to everything imaginable, so if a few more suckers will cough up $170 for a Wii version of the game, why not hire some third party to convert the game for a new platform? And that's exactly what they did.

Answer 2: Popular culture moment. Some things just have their moment in the spotlight. Remember Lara Croft? She had her 15 minutes on the original PlayStation and has been whoring herself out like Kato Kaelin ever since trying to stay relevant. The salesman's wisdom holds that you should sell while the market is hot. So, back to answer 1: Make money while the making is good.

Because it's hard to say how long Rock Band's star will shine. Right now, the brand, and its bastard cousin Guitar Hero, appear to have no shame. Well, maybe some shame. I have not seen Rock Band underwear, yet -- but I can only image it's coming.