Posted Thu Jun 4, 2015 at 10:10 AM PDT by Justin Clark
Harmonix has reasons, though.
With the news about Steam Machines starting to trickle out little by little, and the company being good enough to make 'A City Sleeps' PC exclusive, you might have some hope that Harmonix might bring their franchise to PC they way Activision has done for 'Guitar Hero'. Unfortunately, Harmonix is gonna have to pop that bubble: The game's just not coming to PC any time soon. In an interview with Eurogamer, Harmonix employee Daniel Sussman broached the question of a PC port.
"There are a few reasons. One has to do with the fact the library is not there on PC. The library is there on Xbox and PlayStation. So, for players who want it on PC, really you're looking at a new audience that hasn't played before, and I don't know to what degree there is an audience for new players who have never played 'Rock Band' before on the PC. That's one piece of it."
"The other piece is all the security issues, to be perfectly frank. There's something comforting about the closed network that comes along with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. That's important to our partners in the music industry. Not to say that's an unsolvable problem."
Harmonix also further clarified Sussman's statement after the interview, stating "the security in question is related to licensed music in the game. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have robust functionality in that area. It's added security that's handled by the platform holders. In the case of more open platforms like PC, we're responsible for that. It's something we can build. It's not off the table for the future, however we're first focusing on delivering 'Rock Band 4' for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this holiday."
The translation here appears to be the idea of rampant modding, and the music industry having some issues with the idea of any song at any time easily spliced into the game. Not that it's ever stopped modders in the past, as a cursory search for custom 'Rock Band 3' songs on YouTube will prove. But Harmonix protecting this great little platform they're building is their perogative.
You can find the latest info on 'Rock Band 4' linked from our Video Game Release Schedule.
Source: Eurogamer
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