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Finally - Activision Gives Consumers some Credit [Guitar Hero 2 DL Content]

Article by: MrCHUPON

Editorial: Finally - Activision Gives Consumers some Credit [Guitar Hero 2 DL Content] [Written 2007-04-11]

I'll be downloading all the packs immediately. Hell, I'll buy another Xbox 360 just to buy the packs twice. I'm an educated consumer, and I know that this is a great deal. And the letters spell...

So, information has been released with regards to the downloadable song packs for the Microsoft Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. This is something that Guitar Heroes have been looking forward to for a long time - the ability to put a few wampum down and suck fresh, new songs through the internet pipe - or, in this case, great songs from the first game that would be playable within Guitar Hero II's framework of improved hammer-ons/pull-offs and cooperative multiplayer.

All told, this is fantastic news. What do we get? Three packs, each buyable for 500 marketplace points. Each pack consists of three songs from the first guitar hero. That nets you a predetermined set of songs for, and let me get my conversion calculator, for $6.25. Pretty sweet deal. I'm assuming that future packs are downloadable for the same 500-point price. That means that when you put down $25 for 2,000 points, you can buy four packs without those annoying 100- to 300-point "leftovers." Nice! And, it's great that they come in pre-determined packs of three songs. Personally, I don't have the time to remember which individual songs I actually want; I don't have the time to scroll through a long list of singles. I think of the mandatory payment for songs that I don't want as a convenience fee. Saves me time and effort.

Reportedly, Guitar Hero III is due out in the fall. Let's call it on November of 2007. I've been reading several comments on the internets, and the speculation is that a new set of packs will be released at this similar pattern (three packs of three songs) on a monthly basis. So seven months from now, just over $90 will net us the entire repertoire of the original Guitar Hero - just in time for the release of Guitar Hero III. This might mean no new songs, as Activision would save them for the third game in the series. Who needs new songs? Xbox 360 owners have only had a week to get accustomed to this new library of over 68 songs. Give them some time. This also leaves enough time for PS2-only owners to practice their six-month old tracks to five-star perfection.

Convenient and timely - that's all I can describe this as. Downloadable content for consoles was big excitement when it was first announced, but with the advent of these song packs, we're finally seeing fairly priced and logically structured downloadable content - done right.

Anyone who's invested the additional dollars in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II ($89.99) over the Playstation 2 version ($79.99) will know from this announcement that the $10 retail premium was worth it. Come to think of it, the approximate pricing of $2.08 per song is a thank-you to those who paid the premium. Think of it this way: iTunes songs cost $0.99, but you can't import them and play them in a videogame. You also can't play them in 5.1 surround-sound audio without going through the inconvenient hassle of connecting your iPod to your Xbox 360 or home theatre with a single cord.

Something tells me that a lot of people are going to be giddy over the prospect of finally being able to download these songs. Already I'm hearing of petitions going up on the interwebs, and I can only imagine that their main purpose is to encourage other developers to follow suit with Activision's methodology. We're talking about a new paradigm, where extra content is structured so that it doesn't get in the way of sequels, or your free time.

Me? I'll be downloading all the packs immediately. Hell, I'll buy another Xbox 360 just to buy the packs twice. I'm an educated consumer, and I know that this is a great deal.

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