EA announces Rock Band for Wii
Hey, remember how nearly three months ago I said:
“Time to be the buzzkill to the buzkills in the room: yes, there is not now, nor has there ever been an official announcement regarding a Wii version of the EA/MTV/Harmonix game Rock Band outside of the nebulous “we’re exploring the possibilities.” This does not change one very important fact: EA fucking loves money.
Look, I’m breaking hearts here, I know. The game company originally founded on the premise of whether a videogame can make you cry, fucking loves money. They will do anything to get more money.
I want you to imagine how much you could possibly love money – you don’t even have to imagine directly loving money here, the indirect “this green papery stuff equals fun and easy living” will suffice – I want you to grasp that thought in your head. Think about how, if you had the money, you’d buy a Tesla Roadster, or possibly a vehicle that runs of the fat of endangered whales and the nightmares of blind, deaf, and mute children.
Do you have that thought in your head? Do you have it? Great, now multiply that by a factor of a hundred. Now multiply it again by the largest number you can possibly think of – fake numbers count here, I recommend quadruple-million-gazillion – and keep going until you fucking get the point I’m trying to make here. The end result of your building love and desires is still only fractions of fractions of EA’s desire for money.
The facts: EA loves money; Rock Band has been released on the Xbox 360, the Playstation 2, and Playstation 3; Guitar Hero 3 has been released on the Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, the Cell Phone, Mac OSX, and Windows. There is even a proposed DS version of Guitar Hero in the works. EA fucking loves money. EA has shown time and time again that it really likes being the leading publisher in the genres it chooses to enter, read: Madden’s NFL exclusivity. EA fucking loves money. Most importantly: there is money to be made releasing a Wii version of Rock Band.
The speculation: Rock Band will be announced for the Wii when either of these two things happen, preferably when both happen:
1.Hardware production problems and limitations are solved. When EA can produce enough reliable hardware, it will.
2.When the announcement of a Wii version would no longer cannibalize existing product.Look, I’m not promising Rock Band Wii, I’m just saying: EA loves money and hates not being #1.”
And guess what just happened? EA/MTV has announced it will release a version of its popular music game, Rock Band, on the Nintendo Wii. It will cost you $169.99 when it is released on June 22nd and will feature the same stock 63 songs as the X360/PS3 version. The addition of 5 extra tracks to the default selection was also announced, but specific titles were left unnamed.
It has been confirmed that the game is based off the feature-stripped PS2 version. It will not include access to downloadable content, nor will it feature an online component. The game’s hardware will not use the Wii-remote, nearly confirming the absence of interoperability with the existing Guitar Hero 3 guitar.
Now, considering my newly minted status as clairvoyant, I will make one final Rock Band prediction: from the 5 new songs available, at least one of them will be Nintendo related. BELIEVE!
- Rob O’Reilly
