HMX CEO: "Radical departure" for RB in the future?

**DorkmasterFlek** · Joined: 14 Oct 2006 Posts: 1968 Location: Toronto, ON

RockBandAide has highlights from the first part of a great in-depth interview over at Giant Bomb with CEO Alex Rigopulos, CTO Eran Egozy, and Senior VP of Product Development Greg LoPiccolo. Really detailed stuff if you're interested in HMX as a company and how things run now vs. when Viacom owned them. It's also interesting because the interviewer himself is former-Harmonix employee Alex Navarro. Really good read, and I can't wait for part two.

The specific interesting bits about RB are this so-called "radical departure" they refer to. Personally, I'd hazard a guess that they will move more towards an actual music creation direction rather than just playback. I'd love to see something in this regard, though I have no idea how you'd even approach it. More detailed than GH Tunes, obviously. What does everybody think? Let the speculation begin!

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**hiddenzombie013** · Joined: 10 Aug 2007 Posts: 1766 Location: Tampa, FL

Personally, I fully trust Harmonix to handle this franchise in the best way possible. I love how they still have crazy ideas for the franchise, so I can't wait to see what they have in store. I'm hoping that, whatever it is, all of our DLC carries over again, but I'm wondering how radical of a departure they can make while still retaining the classic gameplay.

Hell, I was just hoping for Rock Band 4: Final Encore or something, that perfected on what RB3 started, but I'm just happy that they're still doing another game period. After all, Rock Band DLC is still profitable for them (another thing I'm very happy about), so hopefully this next project will be a success as well.

So essentially, nothing but good can come from this.

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Goals:
Learn Pro Guitar [ ] (still have a lonnnnng way to go!)
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Pick up on some DLC I missed [ ]
5* + 250-streak on Llama Pro Drums [X]
Finish all Drums/Pro Drums goals [ ]

**NoThru22** · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 221 Location: Bel Air, MD

It will probably be Rock Band: Kinect but hopefully it will still work with legacy instruments.

**thecaptainof** · Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 7571 Location: ¯\(°_o)/¯

**DorkmasterFlek** · Joined: 14 Oct 2006 Posts: 1968 Location: Toronto, ON

**machetemonkey** · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 3043 Location: Minneapolis, MN

**TheGlow** · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 2748 Location: J Train Brooklyn!

I kind of miss getting a disc with random songs I dont know.
You often get a gem on there you would never have encountered on your own. With so much dlc, I'm not just going to buy stuff on a whim to see if I like it.
Like The Killing Moon. Me and a coworker, whenever something happens and we get screwed sing out "Fate, up against your will!"
He doesnt even like rockband but knows it from hearing others play it, and I know it from playing.
I dont think neither of us would know what it is if it wasnt an on disc track.

**nextlevel88** · Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 573

Well, if there's a genre that needs a shot to the arm, this is it. No better way to do that than with a "radical departure". I'm confident.
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**blingdomepiece** · Joined: 03 Aug 2007 Posts: 4358 Location: Ottawa ON Canada

**JOE2210** · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 2480 Location: In the Gagasphere

I highly doubt we'll get RB:Tunes, that's what RBN is for if you want to take it seriously.

On the Kinect note, I can see it happening and not being too intrusive, like Forza 4. I played that earlier, and even though they do drop the hint about playing with Kinect, it's not pushy at all, and even playing with it is pretty fun. I don't think HMX would make their entire console shtick Kinect based, they have one game for that and they would be pretty much aimed at a pretty small market.

I'm going to say that this radical departure is going to be a total visual overhaul, as in making the characters look more human and have a lot more continuity in the staging and movement on stage, maybe with some motion capture chucked in there as well. If there's one thing I LOVED about GH, it was the special mo-cap sequences, Beat It and Bohemian Rhapsody spring to mind.
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**machetemonkey** · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 3043 Location: Minneapolis, MN

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**FyreWulff** · Joined: 18 Aug 2009 Posts: 539

I have a personal theory that they're holding off on Rock Band 4 until the Wii U solidifies. No point on pushing another title out on Wii when the Wii U will be compatible with the instruments anyway, so might as well benefit from being able to patch and so on.

Question is if they would actually do anything with the tablet in Rock Band.