Mixed reviews for iPhone's Rock Band
Photo: Electronic Arts
On Monday, nearly two weeks after Electronic Arts (ERTS) confirmed its imminent arrival, the iPhone version of Rock Band — one of the most successful video game franchises of recent years — showed up on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes App Store to mixed reviews. (App Store link here.)
The lion's share of the first 40 messages on the App Store were one-line positives: "Amazing." "Awesome!" "Saaaaweeeeeett!"
But the longer, more thoughtful — and more useful — reviews were less kind. The main complaints seemed to be that it was too expensive ($9.99), too easy (lacking an "extreme" level), and that some of the advanced features, such as multi-user play over Bluetooth, didn't work as advertised.
The big problem, however, is that the program is 15 months too late.
Veteran game-players are comparing it not only with Harmonix' original Rock Band for Sony's (SNE) Playstation 3 and Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360, but with Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge, which has occupied the beat-tapping mobile game market since July 2008 with free and paid ($0.99) versions.
The competition is fierce. Tap Tap Revenge is one of the most successful iPhone games ever released; by last spring one in three iPhone and iPod touch users had downloaded it.
So early reviews are critical. I had fun playing the game at the easy levels, but as of Monday morning, "missmaxim's" write-up of Rock Band had been voted most helpful. We've copied it below the fold:
Source: iTunes App Store
The news is that for every downloaded copy, Apple nets $3. But Apple doesn't really need to care wether tap-tap or Rock Band or any other game wins out, either way, they make 30% of the revenue from selling them.
This isn't the case for any other gaming platform.
PED – you should have left this article alone – not really earth-shattering news is it – and it's not like anything else is happening today that might actually be more newsworthy or perhaps you are planning to bury it under the chaos that will follow this afternoon's earnings report.
I think you should have kept this back for a slow news day.
ex ped: You may be right, but if I'd waited for a slow news day, the release of Rock Band on the App Store wouldn't be news anymore.
That's the news Brian? An article about Rock Band for the iPhone, and it's quality versus the competition is really about Apple getting a 30% cut? Sorry, that's not "the news" as I read it.
BTW: If you think Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't get a sizable cut of every game licensed for their platforms, you are very misinformed.