Activision tells Sony to block Rock Band’s Guitar Hero controller patch
Harmonix has publicly attacked Sony and Activision, claiming that their patch to use the Guitar Hero III controller on the PS3 in Rock Band was blocked. Harmonix claim they had the patch ready by December 4th but “continual objections” by Activision caused Sony to block its release. As a display of good will Harmonix have said that they “believe in an open standard philosophy of hardware and game compatibility” and that they “welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so.”
Its’ not really a big surprise that Sony would do this (we have all seen how they love their proprietary formats and devices), but I expected less selfish behavior from Activision.
Check after the jump for Harmonix’s statement.
“As we have said in the past, Harmonix and MTV Games believe in an open standard philosophy of hardware and game compatibility. We think that there should be interoperability between music instrument controllers across all music games. This is clearly in the best interest of consumers, game developers and console manufacturers and will only help to grow the music game genre as well as inspire innovation and creativity.
Two weeks ago, Harmonix created a software patch for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that allowed for guitar compatibility and support for third party peripherals, including enabling use of Activision’s Guitar Hero III controller with Rock Band. The compatibility patch was submitted, approved and had been scheduled for release by Sony on Tuesday, December 4. Unfortunately, Activision objected to the release of the compatibility patch. The patch remains with Sony, but we have been told that it will unfortunately not be released due to Activision’s continued objection.
As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band. 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.”
via Joystiq
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December 17th, 2007 at 7:56 am
[…] have hit out at Harmonix’s accusations that they are to blame for blocking the patch that enables Guitar Hero III controllers in Rock […]
December 20th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
That would not happen. Open source idea for any softwares and games is good for development and such, but it is terrible and a potential threat to these multi-national corporation behemoth like Activision, Sony etc. Take a look at Steve Ballmer from MS and his irrational claim when being asked about Open Source Linux OS in which he bluntly replied that he would sue anyone using Linux as Linux (derived from UNIX) is violating their MS copyrights and further action would be followed to those who are/will use Linux.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
If anybody reads this and thinks that the patch to make the controller work shouldn’t be blocked could you leave a message for activision on their website. http://activision.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/activision.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=DkPZUZ8j&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li= I am hoping if enough people post saying how CRAP a service they are providing that they will let the patch for the Rock Band controller through.