MTV Games and Harmonix are claiming that Activision is blocking the release of a patch that would make the Guitar Hero III controller for the PlayStation 3 compatible with Rock Band.
Next Generation has reported that MTV Games, publisher of the recently-released Rock Band, issued a statement saying that developer Harmonix created a patch two weeks ago that supported the use of third-party peripherals, including the Guitar Hero III controller, on the PlayStation 3 version of the game. The patch was submitted to Sony and approved for release, but has been held up over objections from Activision. Sony remains in possession of the patch, but has told MTV Games it will not be released.
“As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox 360, we believe that Sony PlayStation 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band,” MTV Games said in its statement. “We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so.”
“We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others in the industry will also adopt this philosophy.”
Activision has not yet commented on the MTV Games statement, but in an earlier interview with 1Up, a representative from Activision subsidiary RedOctane said, “I don’t think we’re too interested in having (Rock Band’s) guitars work on our game, because they’re having a lot of issues with their guitars. From our standpoint, to be quite honest, if you know a competitor’s product has issues, there’s not a whole lot of motivation to make these problematic controllers work with your game. Why would you want to cause yourself the headache?”
