Rock Band Keytar!?
No, there’s no plans on releasing a Rock Band keytar… sadly. BUT over on GameIndustry.biz there’s an interview with Harmonix that reveals that Harmonix is at least considering adding a keyboard to the mix of instruments in Rock Band for those who wish they could be a famous rock keyboard player like… that one guy.
GameIndustry.biz: Any chance of expanding into other instruments? Perhaps a keyboard?
Harmonix: We get a lot of requests for the keyboard. Who knows? It may happen one day. It is actually conceptually pretty difficult to build in. Most consoles are set up for four peripherals, not five, which means you have to drop something. Which means that the song offering is more complicated.
You know, it is a big commitment. And then the question is, are there enough rock songs with compelling keyboard parts to make it worthwhile? And maybe the answer is yes, but we’ve been pretty busy [laughs] and we haven’t really gotten there yet.
I’m not sure if there’s enough rock songs that would warrant the trouble of adding a keyboard, but if they somehow got a deal with Van Halen a keyboard would be absolutely necessary. What would a song like Jump be without a keyboard? A sad state of affairs, my friends. Sure you can play piano parts on the guitar like in the semi-recently released NIN songs, but it just feels weird. You need a keyboard or better yet, a keytar for those parts.
The interview also covers a lot of other interesting areas when it comes to everyone’s favorite full band simulation game. When asked if they plan on releasing genre specific discs like Guitar Hero they said that they didn’t have anything to announce, but thought that it was a decent idea that they were looking into. Sweet, there’s still hope for “Rock Band: Kenny Loggins” yet!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:39 am
New Wave anyone?
Also, it could be *piano*, not just keyboard. November Rain, anyone?