Accessories maker Mad Catz said Friday that it signed an agreement with music game developer Harmonix to be the principal peripherals partner for the Rock Band franchise worldwide.
The multi-year licensing agreement means that Harmonix grants Mad Catz the international rights to produce and distribute Rock Band controllers for future versions of Rock Band wherever the game is sold.
The next version of Rock Band is Rock Band 3, due holiday 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.
"Serving as the principal Rock Band video game peripherals partner on a multi-territory basis leverages the powerful product development and global marketing and distribution capabilities Mad Catz has built,” said Mad Catz CEO Darren Richardson in a statement.
Mad Catz has worked with Harmonix and publisher MTV Games over the past two years on Rock Band and Rock Band 2 peripherals. Richardson said that the deal means his company will "take on an even more integral role with the Rock Band franchise."
Mad Catz designs and markets a wide array of video game accessories, including various kinds of game controllers, cables, mice, keyboards and other peripherals.
PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TERRIBLE BASS PEDAL.
My roommate is on his 4th pedal, which just broke 2 weeks ago, and the free replacements aren't happening anymore. So we had to go to an auto parts store, buy custom car pedals, then drill through and bolt the cracked plastic pedal onto the new metal pedal so it would work again. While awesome... yeah... we had to hack the pedal just so it would work again. The situation seems suboptimal.
Also, please make it easy for double bass drumming. While I'm not the drummer, I feel equally affected by the lack of double bass drumming. I can't play the songs I want to play because they are usually insane on the drums. It doesn't help that my roommate has to go apeshit with just 1 bass pedal on songs that were made and charted for double bass.
As well, if you're really awesome, please allow the splitter to recognize when one bass pedal is pushed down, and one is raised up. The double bass splitter from Guitar Hero: Metallica was a start, but per my drummer, there was signal loss in some situations. Specifically he said if he was holding one bass pedal down in a prone position (left foot), when he would lift it up, it would mess up his kicking on the right foot. That cross interference quickly led to the destruction of the GH:WT drums because he refused to play them, even though it required double bass'ing with one pedal on the RB drums again.
Just, you know, trying to help with some feedback. I hope your periphs kick ass, we'll definitely be checking out the new gen of instruments when I can. If you make better periphs than what came with Rock Band 2, we will be updating our living room's plastic instruments.
Sincerely,
Some dude on the internet~
PS: Please don't make the frets on the Rock Band guitars drastically different than Rock Band 2's guitars. I really don't like playing Megadeth, Malmsteem and Satriani on the Guitar Hero controllers because there are gaps in between the buttons and I need to press them down noticeably harder to get the notes to register. Requiring more strength to operate the buttons reduces finger agility, increases finger fatigue and makes the hardest charted songs more artificially hard and less enjoyable to play. <3
This might actually be a very sad day for Rock Band. I am still using my ORIGINAL PS2 controllers, but burned through 4 (yes FOUR) Mad Catz PS2 controllers. If Ed Alexander's comments are any indication, Mad Catz has NOT gotten any better with the quality of their hardware.
Before anybody snarks at me for my PS2 comments, I have a Wii and XBOX 360 and still occasionally play my PS2 and didn't feel the PS3 offered enough bang for the buck.
PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TERRIBLE BASS PEDAL.
My roommate is on his 4th pedal, which just broke 2 weeks ago, and the free replacements aren't happening anymore. So we had to go to an auto parts store, buy custom car pedals, then drill through and bolt the cracked plastic pedal onto the new metal pedal so it would work again. While awesome... yeah... we had to hack the pedal just so it would work again. The situation seems suboptimal.
Also, please make it easy for double bass drumming. While I'm not the drummer, I feel equally affected by the lack of double bass drumming. I can't play the songs I want to play because they are usually insane on the drums. It doesn't help that my roommate has to go apeshit with just 1 bass pedal on songs that were made and charted for double bass.
As well, if you're really awesome, please allow the splitter to recognize when one bass pedal is pushed down, and one is raised up. The double bass splitter from Guitar Hero: Metallica was a start, but per my drummer, there was signal loss in some situations. Specifically he said if he was holding one bass pedal down in a prone position (left foot), when he would lift it up, it would mess up his kicking on the right foot. That cross interference quickly led to the destruction of the GH:WT drums because he refused to play them, even though it required double bass'ing with one pedal on the RB drums again.
Just, you know, trying to help with some feedback. I hope your periphs kick ass, we'll definitely be checking out the new gen of instruments when I can. If you make better periphs than what came with Rock Band 2, we will be updating our living room's plastic instruments.
Sincerely,
Some dude on the internet~
PS: Please don't make the frets on the Rock Band guitars drastically different than Rock Band 2's guitars. I really don't like playing Megadeth, Malmsteem and Satriani on the Guitar Hero controllers because there are gaps in between the buttons and I need to press them down noticeably harder to get the notes to register. Requiring more strength to operate the buttons reduces finger agility, increases finger fatigue and makes the hardest charted songs more artificially hard and less enjoyable to play. <3
Before anybody snarks at me for my PS2 comments, I have a Wii and XBOX 360 and still occasionally play my PS2 and didn't feel the PS3 offered enough bang for the buck.