14 DAY TRIAL // Harmonix is rebooting the Rock Band franchise, bringing it to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 home consoles later this year.
The developer has revealed that all previously released instruments will be compatible with the upcoming title, in order to be fair to long-time fans of the franchise and to reward their loyalty.
This means that the new instruments that the developer will be offering with the upcoming rock star simulator won't be getting any exciting new features.
While this may prove to be a turn-off for some, the company decided to please its former fans and to respect their investment over innovating, so if you happen to have any of the old instruments, you might as well hold on to them.
Part of the decision was due to what the team sees as "the unnecessary proliferation of expensive peripherals" that was rampant during the heyday of the music simulation genre, and which is in part responsible for its demise.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero were all the rage when the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched
All the rhythm-based music franchises have taken a nose dive at the end of the 2000s, mostly due to market saturation, and now it seems that their masters consider it an opportune moment for them to make a comeback.
"Launching with a shiny new range of essential fake instruments would be in conflict with Harmonix's current beliefs. Even aesthetically, they won't deviate far from the traditional Stratocaster shape, given Harmonix's ongoing relationship with Fender," one of the developers was quoted by VideoGamer.
For the time being, it's not exactly clear what Harmonix means when it says that Rock Band 4 will be compatible with every existing instrument released so far. Otherwise put, we still don't know whether we'll be able to use peripherals from Guitar Hero, its main rival series.
However, since the upcoming title will be focusing on guitar, bass, drums and vocals, Rock Band 3's Keytar peripheral won't be supported.
Rock Band 4 is currently scheduled for release later this year and will support all currently released DLC for the past installments in the series.