Guitar Hero Live Director Teases Use for Older Guitar Peripherals

The director of Guitar Hero Live is reminding all you shredders out there to hold onto your old guitar peripherals from the previous games, despite how different the new one is.

Business Insider's recent interview with Guitar Hero Live project director Daniel Sussman revealed some interesting info about his studio's Star Power-fueled return to the series. With both Rock Band and Guitar Hero  making a return this fall, fans are judging both franchises heavily to see which one caters to them more. Based on Guitar Hero Live's new guitar scheme and its unique focus on a six button system with varying pitches (compared to the previous five button scheme), we were intrigued to hear Sussman's reminder to fans to not get rid of their old Guitar Hero peripherals. Many of us thought that the previous generations of the Guitar Hero controller would simply be incompatible with this new format. Fortunately, Sussman and FreeStyle Games have something in the works for whose with a leftover guitar.

"We're planning to support everything that we can: That includes all of the old 'Rock Band' controllers, and all the old 'Guitar Hero' controllers," Sussman said.

Given that Harmonix developed Rock Band and the first two Guitar Hero games, we're glad to hear that FreeStyle Games is working on making everything compatible, as it would certainly save money in the long run. One of the main fallacies of both franchises was that they became saturated with annual releases and peripheral redesigns that simply became too expensive to keep up with and collect.

Our position is really all about respect for our consumers and for the money that they have spent to get into the game space in the first place. They spend a fortune on games: on consoles, on hardware, and we're sensitive to that. We play those games too. We buy all the same stuff. A world where you need to have three different guitars and two drum sets and all this stuff is...we don't want to support that world.

In terms of cross-functionality between Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4, Sussman remains hopeful:

I don't see anything on it that makes me think that we couldn't figure out a way to support it. And yet I won't know for sure until we get one in the office.

While there is no official launch date set, both Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4 will be launching this fall. Guitar Hero Live will cost $99 for both the new guitar peripheral and game, whether it be the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 or Wii U version. Rock Band 4 will have a variety of pricing options depending on if you're getting the new drums, guitar and microphone and will be heading to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.