ChodTheWacko

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/12/ha...guitar-issues/

Okay, so Activision has enough leverage with Sony that they can
tell Sony to block a patch for a competitor's game? That's such cr*p!

Billiam

IMO you also have to lay at least some blame on Sony for this. Either they were just complete pusses and caved into Activision's demand, or they were just stupid for agreeing to a contract with Activision which gave them the power to do this.

doopstr

Sony should have developed standards for the way devices need to talk to the PS3. Apparently that's what Microsoft did.

Silver™

Rock Band is published by EA which is larger than Activision, so I doubt it has to do with Activision having pull with Sony.

Instead it probably has to do with Activision owning some of the code in the patch or some other legal rationale.

Costco

I've boycotted EA. Didn't buy Madden this year and won't ever buy an EA-developed C&C EVER again. I'm gonna convince as many people as I can too....

is300eater

but I'm sooooooooooooooo addicted to COD4 at the moment... I don't think I've been this into a game EVER...

mastertl

Didn't Activision merge with Blizzard making them quite big, possibly bigger than EA?

STL+3.0CL

Its not a matter of who's bigger, its a matter of EA putting out a guitar that is sub par to Activisions guitar and then instead of making a better guitar they want to put a patch out so everyone can use Activisions guitar.

Activision agreed to it as long as they see some type of royalty for it... EA said no, so Activision said F-off. I dont blame them. And they made COD4, so they get my vote.

Activision responds:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/rock-band/a...mtv-333855.php

AznImports602

I done so many moons ago due to after so many patches for BF2 and yet it is still buggy...

ChodTheWacko

Well, the 'their guitar is worse' is just a cop out/cheap shot.
It's not a quality issue, it's a supply issue.

This a horrible precedent for any software/hardware company mergers.
If you support this, then you support Microsoft buying a graphics
card company, Only allowing windows to work with that graphics card,
and then demanding royalties for anyone else to use that card.

And how exactly is Activision blocking this patch? If a driving game
adds support for a new brand of steering wheel, does that company have
the right to charge royalties? I don't think so. Or are they telling
Sony, 'Don't let the competitor patch their product, or we're going
Xbox 360 exclusive with our next game?' This is more likely, and I'm not
even going to go into how horrible THAT precedent is.

STL+3.0CL

Yea, I agree. So are you suggesting that sony needs to step in? Isn't sonys fault in the first place to create a system that can accept proprietary equipment... the 360 guitar works on both games because there is only one way/protocol the guitars can talk to the console.

Silver™

What would you think about a competeing Acura forum creating a "patch" that allowed it's users access to our content with no compensation for Acurazine?

Moog-Type-S

Sony FTL

STL+3.0CL

Exactly, based only on the fact that the competitors subscribers complained that AZ is better and why cant we have their content with our subscribtion.

ChodTheWacko

I think Sony needs to step OUT, and say, 'hey, it's their game, they can update it however they want.'

I'm not pissed that Games want to use their own proprietary controllers (although that's an annoying trend). If Rock Band flat out said, 'we'll never support that controller', then that's their choice.

I think what I find disturbing is that:
1) Sony only allows Patches/DLC to be downloaded through their network (I think)
2) Sony somehow has the right to arbitrarily block patches for games at will?
If a game wants to release a patch, they have to justify to Sony why they should allow it? What's to keep Sony to making things difficult for people who don't make PS exclusive games? It just seems........ questionably legal.

ChodTheWacko

Well, that's quite different.
You're talking about security breaching, etc, etc.

Here's a better example.
Let's say Microsoft made a version of Windows Vista that ran, natively, on the latest
macintosh. Would Apple have a right to block its sale, or demand a royalty for using their proprietary hardware?

Maybe there's some reverse enginerring law of some sort? I don't know.
- Frank

WdnUlik2no

me too! My last chance with them was with Madden/NCAA 2006. I didn't get the 2004 or 2005 versions, but I did get 2003. After playing the 06 versions of the games, I decided I was done with EA for good. Plus the exclusive licensing thing didn't improve my opinion of them. EA sucks.