Rock Band Guitar Issue - Poll

[fcw3]

How widespread is the Rock Band Guitar Issue? I have a Big Box for Santa to deliver. Should he return it now rather than deal with the consequences of a piece of junk ? Are the problems centered around one system's guitar?

Let's find out...

[misfits859]

Broke after about 2 hours of playing. By broke I mean it would work on a down strum about 1/2 of the time. Now it doesn't work period on a downstroke.

[Oobgarm]

Both Tune and I got them for each other as Christmas presents. We weren't going to open them before Christmas, but I wonder if EA is going to run out of replacements by then.

The post about borked instruments on the Rockband.com forum is well over 15 pages long by now.

The demo unit at Best Buy shit the bed after a couple weeks, so there's definitely something wrong; especially considering that thing took a lot of abuse, and people now are talking about them breaking after a couple hours' use.

[Drexel923]

I played with the guitar and drums last night for about an hour each and didn't have any problem yet.

[stimmyjimmel]

yeah played it for about 2 hours... down strumming no longer works..

of course this is after playing it at a friends house considering my 360 red ringed on monday (not a good gaming week for me)

[unwinddesign]

My guitar broke after about 4 hours. Neither downstrums or upstrums work with any consistency. Harmonix and EA lied that the quality of the instruments would be changed from the demo units. I've never heard about a GH2/GH3 official controller biting the dust. The Fender is just a piece of crap.

Shame, too. I liked it. Xbox 360 version, by the way. And who the hell is voting for the PS2 version? It's not out yet...

[Drexel923]

My guitar broke after about 4 hours. Neither downstrums or upstrums work with any consistency. Harmonix and EA lied that the quality of the instruments would be changed from the demo units. I've never heard about a GH2/GH3 official controller biting the dust. The Fender is just a piece of crap.

There was a pretty big issue with the GH2 guitars for 360 when they came out. A ton of them had bum buttons that would stick or had problems with the whammy bar. This kind of thing happens every time a game like this comes out. Not saying that its right, but I'm not surprised.

Played another hour on each last night and my set still works...hopefully I get lucky.

[PapaStu]

Whoever is voting the PS2 version is skewing results. The PS2 version isn't out for another 2 weeks (release is Dec 11th).

[unwinddesign]

There was a pretty big issue with the GH2 guitars for 360 when they came out. A ton of them had bum buttons that would stick or had problems with the whammy bar. This kind of thing happens every time a game like this comes out. Not saying that its right, but I'm not surprised.

Played another hour on each last night and my set still works...hopefully I get lucky.

I knew about the whammy issue, but seeing as how it's not required, it's a little less of a problem. Still, good point. A lot of people had issues with that on the Explorer.

[Nirvana]

Played for about 4 hours last night. No problems right now.

[downfall]

Mine was broken right out of the box - there's a piece that's loose inside the guitar that rattles about - I'm not going to take it apart, especially since I sent off for a new one. The update actually improved it a bit, but my guitar misses about every other upstrum. It wouldn't upstrum at all to begin with. Downstrum works perfectly, though. I'm just miffed because my Les Paul was broken right out of the box too.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

My GF picked up the PS3 bundle at launch ... was planning on it being a christmas present for me, but due to online chatter like this about the hardware, we opened it up to test at the very least the guitar.

Thankfully it worked fine right out of the box. No issues with up or downstrums after about an hour of play, so I boxed it back up for X-MAS.

I also never had any issues with my original PS2 Guitar Hero 1 guitar, or my 360 Guitar Hero III wireless Les Paul. So, I guess I'm lucky. (Or maybe it's because I always strum delicately?)

Also, the Best Buy near me has a demo guitar that felt pretty well-used and still worked perfectly ... so, as far as "abuse" goes ... this may be more of a manufacturing issue than a durability one.

[carlcarlson]

My GF picked up the PS3 bundle at launch ... was planning on it being a christmas present for me, but due to online chatter like this about the hardware, we opened it up to test at the very least the guitar.

Thankfully it worked fine right out of the box. No issues with up or downstrums after about an hour of play, so I boxed it back up for X-MAS.

I also never had any issues with my original PS2 Guitar Hero 1 guitar, or my 360 Guitar Hero III wireless Les Paul. So, I guess I'm lucky. (Or maybe it's because I always strum delicately?)

Also, the Best Buy near me has a demo guitar that felt pretty well-used and still worked perfectly ... so, as far as "abuse" goes ... this may be more of a manufacturing issue than a durability one.


I wouldn't count yourself lucky yet. The guitars seem to breaking after about four hours of play or so, so your one hour test probably isn't enough to put you in the clear. Also, the GH guitars are well-made and rarely crap out, so i wouldn't consider that proof of anything either. Good luck though, I'm crossing my fingers for my controller as well.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I wouldn't count yourself lucky yet. The guitars seem to breaking after about four hours of play or so, so your one hour test probably isn't enough to put you in the clear. Also, the GH guitars are well-made and rarely crap out, so i wouldn't consider that proof of anything either. Good luck though, I'm crossing my fingers for my controller as well.

Well, people were saying the same exact thing about the lacking quality/durability of the GH controllers for each previous platform/release of the game years before Rock Star was even announced, and on this years GH III wireless controller. (There were even a few threads here about strum bar problems.)

Reports on failure after "a few hours" MAY be due to people who play with a more aggressive/abusive style than would be considered standard/normal pressure on the strum bar.

Now, don't get me wrong - I don't doubt that there's a possibility of manufacturer's defects in the product, but I'm relatively satisfied with approximately one hour of testing on the durability of the guitar. There were no instances of failure on a single strum (and no song completed on normal under 98% for that matter) ... so ... well, I didn't want to "look beyond" what evidence was presented and TRY to get it to not work properly.

And, if it does crap out in two hours, I'll just send it back to EA for repairs and continue to enjoy GH III.

[Vectorman0]

Mine was broken right out of the box - there's a piece that's loose inside the guitar that rattles about - I'm not going to take it apart, especially since I sent off for a new one. The update actually improved it a bit, but my guitar misses about every other upstrum. It wouldn't upstrum at all to begin with. Downstrum works perfectly, though. I'm just miffed because my Les Paul was broken right out of the box too.

Mine (360) has had a rattle sound since it came out of the box too, however it has worked fine for over six hours of playtime.

[ubersaurus]

My friend's 360 copy has a problem with the strum bar, as well. Apparently it's been doing this since he goti t.