Where the hell am I going to put all these sets of plastic drums and guitars in my house? This is ridiculous.

I just about creamed in my pantaloons seeing the Eagles and Van Halen confirmed there. As asinine and silly as it sounds, I think I would buy the whole set w/instruments just to play some Eagles tunes (unless the RB ones miraculously were compatible-which has a less than zero chance of happening).

Yes, it does look nice but I have to draw the line. I'm in the Rock Band camp now and just don't have the room or money for a second entire kit. This is geting officially out of hand. Did anyone cover what the new guitar feature was? Sorry if I missed that.

I'm not so sure cymbals was a good idea, at all. The beauty of the RB setup is its flexibility, depending on the song or even section of the song, the pads transform into different parts of the kit. Sometimes the red pad, which is usually the snare, even becomes the high hat (when you are playing 16ths like in RttH). Then think of something like Maps where you are playing a bunch of toms. Seems like with this kit you only have 3 pads for that instead of 4, unless cymbal pads are going to be used as toms as well which seems unlikely.

I will be happy to change my mind once I try them, but right now I am thinking the RB drum setup is better.

Managed to read the text in that scan above and two things sound great: they are focused on making the pads a lot quieter, and the pads and kick are all velocity sensitive, which is really cool. I have no idea how that would affect gameplay though...

That drum set looks fantastic to me. Far better then the simple Rock Band one.

I ain't buying any more drum sets.

There's no way in hell I'm cluttering up the house w/ 2 sets of instruments. I hated GH3 and the entire family (sans wife) loves Rock Band so we'll just stick with that.

Yeah, count me in the "no way in hell I'm buying another drumset" camp. Can you imagine EA making you buy a new controller to play Madden each year? Or Activision making their games use a different controller than EA games? I know it's not that simple of an analogy in the real world, but IMO these guitar/band games have been around long enough that they should be at a point where they are standardizing things a bit or at least allowing 100% backwards compatibility.

I'll echo the "I'm not buying a second set of instruments" sentiments. If they don't allow compatibility with the Rock Band guitars I'll boycott the game on that alone. Both sides need to make everything work with everything, nobody loses that way.

Effects pedal? That's kind of what it sounds like.

Makes sense, it has to be something easy to implement into existing guitars. People don't want or need a new guitar with every game.

I could live without though. I sit in my recliner while playing with my feet up. A pedal would kill that.

What kind of rocker are you!?!?! There's no way I could play GH or RB sitting down. I gotta stand and get into the music. Hell, I'll even do the wide-leg metal stance or put my foot up on the table during certain songs.

To bring something related to the thread, I'm pretty much done with additional peripherals. Like most everyone else, I don't have room to store two different drumsets or yet another guitar. Hell, my closet is lined with plastic guitars along the walls, and the RB drums, drum throne, and mic stand on the floor.

Unless they've drastically changed the engine and even the look of the game, I'm going to pass. Even if the tracklist is amazing, a shoddy presentation is going to kill it for me. Drumset does look nice though. Too bad it won't be compatible with RB. I don't think it will be a technical imcompatibility (at least not for 360, due to standards), but that the pads don't have the same layout.

And why in the world would they do that?

The only wise business choice for them is to make a better set with better features and interplay exclusive to the GH engine. There needs to be a clear line in the sand for each franchise. Personally I cant wait for GH4. I dont have RB.

What would be the best option is for GH to have compatability with limited function. If you have the GH sets then there are more options and better gameplay in essence. With the RB sets not so much, just basic interplay.

I'm a little irritated like others are. If the 2nd cymbal is orange and the bass pedal isn't designated a color, they've basically designed it where RB couldn't even patch in drum mapping to allow compatibility. That's annoying. I understand it with guitars to an extent, and I understand protecting a brand, but it's frustrating for an expensive peripheral.

Except that far more people have the Guitar Hero peripherals and games than have the Rock Band ones.

I wouldn't mind selling my Rock Band kit if this turns out to be "better" (i.e. - I like it more), but there is no way in hell I'm keeping two sets of video game instruments in my apartment.

Hopefully a 3rd party (The Ant Commandos) can produce peripherals that are compatible with both games, including all features. However unlikely, that would be the best solution.

Exactly.

If Activision does this right, RB is going to suffer a heck of alot. Especially if GH allows some form of limited functionality with the RB periphs.

I expect this to be THE Christmas item this year.

I'd be okay with that, as long as the legacy guitars/instruments were at least functional.

I actually prefer the setup of the GH drum controller. It's much closer to real drums than the RB is. And looks to be a ton better quality as well.

Agreed. That way, those of us who have invested in Rock Band (and its DLC) would still be willing to buy the game-only version of GH4, but Activision can successfully argue that there is an advantage to buying the GH4 instruments. Still, given the history between Activision/Red Octane and EA/Harmonix, I'm not holding my breath for any sort of compatibility.

For what it's worth, I was able to get $50 for mine off craigslist. Not sure or not if they are holding near the $80 retail price on ebay, but I didn't want to ship the set.

Any mention of a possible release date for this? I was getting ready to pull the trigger on Rock Band, but may wait if this isn't too far down the road.

I had $160 worth of fun with Rock Band, so if GH4 comes out with better quality drum controllers, I'd be ready to move onward and upward.

Pull the trigger on RB. I saw one on craigslist this morning for $130 - Go get it! ;-)