Microsoft's Major Nelson Defends Guitar Hero II Download Pricing

April 12, 2007 | By: James Brightman

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Is 500 MS points ($6.25) a fair price for a pack of three downloadable Guitar Hero II songs on Xbox Live? Many of you don't think so, but Major Nelson believes it's justified. In a recent interview, he explained the rationale behind the current GHII pricing structure.

While Major Nelson (a.k.a. Larry Hryb) normally conducts interviews for his podcast, this time the shoe was on the other foot as our friends at Joystiq sat down with the Xbox Live Director of Programming to get his take on the recent announcement of downloadable song packs for Guitar Hero II.

When the pricing structure was announced (500 MS points, or over $2 per song in a three-pack), many fans balked, but Hryb doesn't think it's fair to compare it to the traditional iTunes model because of licensing, interactivity and other issues.

"It's not like you go to iTunes, and you're buying the same thing," he said. "There's testing that's involved, and there's also licensing involved. There's a lot of elements involved. When there's music involved, that brings up a lot of licensing issues. ... It's roughly about $2 a song that you can play over and over. You can't get interactivity with a song on iTunes, and I don't want to defend it: it is what it is." He then added, "We worked with RedOctane to work on prices that make sense, and they clearly can't sell it at a loss. They have to pay the rights licensing."

Another common complaint from gamers is that they should be able to download individual songs rather than being forced to buy a song or two that they don't want just to get the one they do want. After all, if Microsoft is all about giving consumers "choice," as they've proudly stated over and over, why couldn't they work out an individual downloads structure with Activision/RedOctane?

"We've talked about what it takes to get content onto Marketplace. You guys know: it has to be processed, it has to be developed. Is it easier to process one song and release it and would have it to be more expensive? Or can you take some of that development, bundle it together, and drop the price down," Hryb said. "All those songs have to go through that process. If you have three songs entering the approval process, individually, that's three times more problems--and there's more probability for error. So, let's bundle them together, and test them as a unit and drive the price down."

Major Nelson then proceeded to discuss the upcoming Spring Xbox 360 Dashboard update, the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, and his wife's love of Wii Sports bowling. Check out the full interview at the link above.