Well. All I can say is, rock on, harmonix. rock on!

Believe it or not the poor pun did not occcur to me until seconds after making the post..

P.S. Gizmodo can we, the loyal readers, have a way to edit comments for christmas?

Activision... stop being jerks Learn from Harmonix. Or we cancel our pre-orders for Tony Hawk 15 and Call of duty 11

Wow, I didn't realize that Activision sucked so much. I will not be buying their junk anymore.

Let me get it straight, correct me if im wrong
i cannot use the gh3 in gh2 in the ps3 and now i cannot play RB with my gh3 guitar????? to me thats a good reason to break the legs of the Man on charge of this.

this is crap. you OWN the damn guitar and should be able to do what you want with it. providing a patch to let this peripheral work with another piece of software (reverse engineering) no way infringes on Activision's IP and if anything will lead to MORE sales of Activision's GH3 controller since some people may prefer it over the one that comes with Rock Band.

For the record though, I got guitar hero iii for the wii a couple of weekends ago and after a week with it I got this killer knot in my neck from that fuckin guitar and it still hasn't subsided after 5 days of not playing. Activision needs to patch GH3 to let me try Harmonix' guitar. maybe that one won't render me crippled.

I'm guessing this happened because Harmonix reverse engineered the Les Paul guitar in order to fix the issue. This threw up red flags for the legal team at Craptavision.

I almost never write letters but I've written Activision twice. The first time when that GH3 guitar wouldn't work with previous versions of GH on my PS3. I assumed that would eventually happen, but it was still a stupid move. This, on the other hand is a deal breaker. I will be purchasing Activision titles second hand, and trashing them to anyone who will listen. I really appreciate having a super-size proprietary controller that can only be used with one video game ever. Thanks Activision!

Cans it be tiems for disgruntled gamer uprisings again, pls?

I mean, it's worked every other time!

I don't know about the PS3, but on the PS2 you could play any of the GH games using a standard controller. This led me to believe that the guitar was merely mapped to a standard config and plugged into the PS2. I had one third party GH1 controller that didn't work with GH2, but I figured it was due to some sort of electronic gadget between the buttons and the machine.
What on Earth makes one controller work over another, other than some propietary dickery by the manufacturer?
This isn't the cheapest fix, but has anyone tried gutting a guitar and connecting the leads to a standard controller?

You know, I wasn't planning on buying GH3 but now I'm really not planning on buying it. So you just lost another non-sale, Activision. How do you like that?

det a real f guitar

its just so sad watching someone play this - and so far from what it's like to play a loud guitar into a tube amp in front of a decent crowd.

But that takes effort, so I guess its OK for this site.

@flyboy: blah blah blah... heard it all before. It's a GAME dude, let it go...

@flyboy:

A very tired argument. You could say the same thing for every single sports game out there. Why play a video game when the real thing is more fun?

I enjoy golf video games, but hate real golf. Should I give up the video games and hit the course doing something I have no interest in just because it's "real?"

I don't want to learn to play guitar. I want to play a videogame.

Damn flyboy got me off track.

This makes no sense to me. If I own a GHIII controler, then Activision already has my damn money. What harm comes to them if their controller has additional value?

Just because Activision's newest games features rock music doesn't mean they should start acting like Metallica (as in Metallica V Napster).

@FLYBOY: With your head so far up your colon, you might as well check yourself for polyps

@Bender:

you guys are right - but if you read again - I didn't say it was wrong - I said it was sad. I am not arguing not to to do it - why not - its a video game. go ahead.

Big difference.

However, that's the same argument that allows shooters depicting gruesome killings to be played by 9 year olds.. so there is a an end game - if you can put enough effort in to thinking about it, but again maybe not for this site, eh.

@flyboy:
Wow, are you in any way related to Jack Thompson? Take a chill pill and go play some solitaire....with real cards. Mabey that's more your speed.

I forget where I read it (mabey here) but if you think about it, what really defines a musical instrument? Some folks believe we're only a few steps away from transitioning to actually creating music with these "toys" instead of just playing covers. All it would take is a smattering of more and smaller fret buttons and you could work out a no-strings guitar fairly easily and be able to use the same chords and finger movements and such as on a real guitar.

The drum set in Rock Band is even closer to a real instrument. Just give it the ability to emulate and assign differnt types of drums, cymbals, etc. and blamo, you've got yourself an electric drum.

Get this stuff going and make it MIDI capable, plug it in your computer, and start jamming! Yea, sure, "real" guitarists will scoff and guffaw at the idea but this stuff happens all the time from generation to generation. The older generation always had it harder and the older technology was always more difficult to use.

Embrace change folks. Hell, playing GHIII on hard gives me nightmares. I play it on medium and have fun. I will agree with FlyBoy and say though that if you can play songs perfectly or nearly so on hard and expert then you should really consider playing the real thing, in addition to, not necessarily in place of, the game version for the simple fact that if your fingers can move that quickly and you can follow the beats and match them that well, it's only a small stretch to play a real guitar. This goes double for these kids I've seen on YouTube doing it. Their parents should at least get them one of those FirstAct guitars at WalMart or something and let them give it a shot and mabey even some lessons. It would be easier for a kid to learn than an adult. Being an ace at Tiger Woods '08 does not mean you can grab some clubs and hit the links and do the same thing.

I forgot the real reason I was going to post... Correct me if I'm wrong but won't the GHIII controller work on RB for the 360? I'm considering picking up just the game and getting the drum set later when it's available separately.

@flyboy: Your trolling is tiresome and ineffectual.

Also, I hope you understand how stupid you look when you mock people for being on this site when you're a registered member yourself. Really.

In short: go to Engadget. They enjoy pathetic attempts at trolling like yours; you'll fit in well.

Harmonix (or Red Octane) would have taken the same stance if the situation were similar for them (competing with a higher produced game). Rock Band only stands to win from this move.
Activision, however, would be cheapening their game brand as a pack-in for a new rock band guitar. A year or so out and guitar hero is a tool...

Rock band is about as noble as google is for giving away free things or connectivity. They do it because it doesn't hurt their core business or future and that's that.

Wow, Activision is in a good spot. They get to object, and simultaneously it makes the PS3 and Sony look bad!

People will end up associating the reason why it doesn't work with the PS3, since the same thing works fine on the Xbox360...

@flyboy:
FUUUUUUCK OOOOOOFF

I play real guitar, too, but that doesn't mean that Rock Band isn't crazy fun. Dumbshit.

I wont be buying one for my son this christmas, for sure. And it wont hurt Sony a bit that they're doing this.

@sublimnl: The pain in your neck from the GH3 controller is due to the little spoken about reality generator technology. A breakthrough in modern science, just as a real Les Paul will bust your f@!king back, the Les Paul controller does as well.

@dkoemans: LOL thanks. its freakin ridiculous man, its not like i'm a shrimpy guy at 5'10", 210 (*DINNNG!!!* for all the Dan Patrick listeners). I guess I'm just a wuss haha

today is day 7 sans-GH3 and the pain is finally gone. time to rock out again tonight.