On Friday, Activision revealed that you’ll be able to play most Guitar Hero World Tour downloadable content, as well as some of the on-disc songs from World Tour and Guitar Hero Smash Hits, in Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero. That’s pretty damn awesome, even if Harmonix beat them to the punch by a year. But in case you were curious about the particulars, we’ve sorted it all out.
It’s a bit complicated, so you’ll have to hit the jump for the details. If you’ve still got a question after you go through it, you can hit up the comments.
To read more about Guitar Hero 5, wait for my preview in 40 minutes. Then check back at 4:20 PM EDT for a preview of the Wii version of the game, and tomorrow for impressions of GHStudio 2.0, the revamped song creation setup.
First off, you’ll have to download a Guitar Hero 5 update that will enable GH 5-specific features (such as band moments and vocal star power) for imported songs. World Tour currently has 158 DLC songs available, and as it stands, 152 of them will play nice with GH 5 and Band Hero. Importing disc-based songs will work with World Tour and Smash Hits for now, though Activision would like to add other games to that list. (The roadblock is that a song has to be re-licensed if it’s to be used in games other than the one in which it originally appeared.)
Importing songs will work in a manner similar to Rock Band. You’ll need to input the 20-digit Unique Owner ID that’s on the back of the manual of the game you’re importing songs from, and you’ll also have to pay a “nominal re-licensing fee,” though there’s no indication yet of how much that fee will be. (In other words, you won’t be able to import songs from a prior Guitar Hero game merely by renting it, you cheapskates.)
Song compatibility will work on PS3, 360, and Wii. After paying the licensing fee, PS3 and 360 users will be forced to download the full set of songs from a particular game, while Wii owners can cherry-pick the specific songs they want. (Fear not: if you decide later that you want a song you didn’t originally download, you won’t have to pay again, and PS3/360 owners can delete songs from a full game’s set.) On Wii, songs can be downloaded to system memory or an SD card; GH 5 will be the first Wii game to support high-capacity SD cards (SDHC), with up to 32 GB of storage. And if you delete a song -- say, to free up some space -- you can always re-download it later for free.
Contest:
12:00 PM on 08.10.2009
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"and you’ll also have to pay a “nominal re-licensing fee,”
"PS3 and 360 users will be forced to download the full set of songs from a particular game"
No thanks Guitar Hero. Rock Band <3
All of what you quoted could actually applies to what MTV/Harmonix did with Rock Band 1 to Rock Band 2. :D
I have to say "it's about damned time" on this one. It's nice to know that moving on to the next GH doesn't have to mean ditching old songs and favorites. I have to wonder how this will apply to other titles like Band Hero and GH Van Halen. Will all of the songs you dump from World Tour and Smash Hits also appear in Band Hero? Will you be able to dump Band Hero songs to the hard drive for play in GH5?
This is almost great news. I hope the nominal fee isn't too high, though.
Regardless, on principle alone I won't be purchasing this. Thanks, Bobby Kotick!
Very interesting! I don't remember hearing of a fee though to bring over Rock Band songs into RB2. All my friends also tell me that the song transfer rate is 100%. I only have Rock Band 1, so I'm just going off what I understand.
Truth be told, the only rhythm game that looks remotely interesting to me in the near future is Rock Band Beatles.
Guitar Hero needs a Goddamned flowchart for its import. A few DLC songs won't work, you have to download an update to add new features, you have to enter some retarded code, only one transfer per copy... this is bullshit.
I suppose my friends meant all RB DLC was 100% transferable, and apparently all GH DLC will not be.
That's mainly what I was talking about: honestly, I couldn't give a shit about transferring songs from a previous retail iteration, because that means you already own it, and can just pop it in!
As far as I remember, it was only Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Maiden's Run to the Hills, and Metallica's Enter Sandman that were excluded.
"honestly, I couldn't give a shit about transferring songs from a previous retail iteration, because that means you already own it, and can just pop it in!"
No no no no. While it might seem 'lazy' to not want to put another disc in your drive, that's really not entirely what it's all about. The idea of having a platform -- Rock Band, for instance -- in which to play ALL of your music is beyond appealing. While I don't have all of the DLC, it's really nice for me to be able to turn on Rock Band 2 and be able to choose from close to 600 songs to choose from at any given moment. Particularly with GH5's 'Party Play' modes, the more songs you have access to in one place, the better.
Yea I definitely hear that. When it comes time for Rock Band 3/Guitar Hero 7, hopefully cross-compatibility will be standard, and like you said, you can select from thousands of songs on demand.
Personally, I'm more concerned about cross game DLC compatibility, which you pay extra money for.
Train Kept a Rolling actually made the transfer from RB1 to RB2. But meh, Guitar Hero's game plan post-GH3 has constantly been the following.
1- Milk franchise
2- Release retail games that should be DLC packs
3- Copy what Rock Band is doing, and somehow seem to mess it up
4- Repeat