Rock Band 2 was released recently, as Harmonix made the first open move in the Battle of the Rhythm Games. With Guitar Hero 4 looming over the mid-October horizon, the stage is set for a full-scale battle between the well-established Guitar Hero franchise and its still-young Rock Band competitor.

All of the past months of hype and press releases have come down to this.

So how will things play out? Will one game crush the other? Will they split the profits evenly? Will anyone be driven out of business? Will any hippos be involved!? (I hope so.)

My predictions are simple:

Both games are going to do well. The past few years have proven that the world’s appetite for button-mashing on plastic rock instruments is far from satiated. (I know I can’t get enough!) Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 4 are both going to see record profits and will inevitably spawn further sequels.

However, I believe there will be a clear victor in this round, and that will be Guitar Hero 4. Why? Because Guitar Hero’s massive instrument improvements have ambushed Harmonix and struck them with a Critical Hit (which does double damage!). The Music Studio portion of Guitar Hero 4 is going to be a major selling point that will help to ship a lot of units and will vastly increase the game’s staying power, but the instruments are going to be the primary money-making difference.

My reasoning is this: when people look at RB2 and GH4 and ask themselves, “Which one do I want to buy?” they will be probably be split pretty evenly either way. Rock Band has a bit of a branding advantage, having been the first to do the full-band experience, so it is fresher in the minds of the new, semi-informed purchaser. But the fully-informed purchaser, who is aware that all of the instruments are cross-compatible, will, overwhelmingly, choose to purchase the full Guitar Hero 4 package, while purchasing only the disc for Rock Band 2. This is my plan; it is my room-mate’s plan; quite frankly, it makes a whole lot of sense.

So while the games may ship fairly equal numbers of discs, I see Guitar Hero 4 coming out as the noticeable financial winner. Here’s to hoping Harmonix takes the hint and does some meaningful upgrades for Rock Band 3, instead of just adding some polish and less-than-notable upgrades.

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