During this whirlwind of a fall release schedule for games, people not only have to begin making space on their shelves for whatever new game they will be plodding through, but living room’s, bedrooms and any other space where your console may sit needs to be cleaned, cleared and ready for a fresh new injection of plastic instruments. It’s been a little less than a year since the first Rock Band was released and begun to fill rooms to capacity with guitars and a big plastic drum kit among a pile of wires. Now, with Guitar Hero: World Tour launching this past Sunday and Rock Band 2 launching just a few weeks earlier, decisions are being made on whether or get one or the other, or just buy a new house to store them both in.

This is really the first time that there’s been any fierce competition in the peripheral world on this scale. While there are many out there burdened with 3 or more guitars from simply picking up each iteration of Guitar Hero over the last few years, with two separate franchises launching with a guitar, microphone and drum kit each, on top of the addition drum kits and guitars you can buy, is it getting to a point where consumers are going to settle down and relax on the hardware purchases? The answer right now is, probably not. People will continue to buy the equipment, enticed from various reasons, and also the wave of new adopters will always drive the sales of new SKUs. However, whether or not this is the way things should be is something that the industry as a whole, and the consumers, should look at.

Cross-compatibility is one of the key issues that would have to be tackled before anyone could make a decision to stick to one or the other, in this case. With questionable compatibility being stirred by a culture of non-cooperation between Activision-Blizzard and Electronic Arts, it’s hard to put a lot of stock in the major parties’ promises to have full compatibility with all instruments, and the constant iterations on the way the games are played (if only subtly) are continuing to encourage players to continue to buy the next big set of plastic. This segregation of instrument styles and gameplay associated with is a major factor in how music games are competing these days, though, with Guitar Hero: World Tour boasting cymbals for drums and a special touch pad for guitars, it seems as if the little touches and iterations are what is driving the competition in the first place.

Downloadable content is a concept that really is being pushed these days, but perhaps not quite enough. When Harmonix released Rock Band they were stressing the longevity of that product, and how it would be supported by DLC for years to come, with no need for an update on the instruments. Obviously, that plan changed based on a variety of factors, and when Activision showed they were planning to offer strong competition not just on the amount of DLC they would offer, but exclusivity on the artists, it became a very different environment. Now we see constant posturing between the various companies as to who can get what content when, and it has also begun to contribute to the divide in the genre.

With the constant iterations on the hardware and the exclusivity on the DLC becoming the forefront of competition in the music genre, we need to take a step back and look at where this is leading us. Competition is always seen as being good for the consumer, giving more options and driving innovation into the market at a faster pace than what might be seen with a singular, monopolistic entity. Are we starting to reach a point, however, when the segregation between the Rock Band Jets and the Guitar Hero Sharks will be such similar styles with just varying degrees of hit singles that it almost becomes moot which one is even on the market. Certain companies are taking a different approach to the genre, with Konami simply releasing their newest game Rock Revolution without a guitar or a microphone, but able to use any available one. Even Nintendo’s Wii Music is moving in a new direction in a way that they only could.

A week or so ago we talked about Nintendo’s controller driving its sales and the same can be said for all of the rhythm and music games. It’s an experience you simply can’t emulate anywhere else, and whoever is offering the more attractive experience is the one who will win out. It’s very likely that GT:WT will sell astoundingly well this holiday season, simply based on the strong brand, but I almost believe we are reaching a critical point in which the experience may become diluted. While we should expect Harmonix to make a major attempt at emulating and iterating on what they’ve done for next year, can we expect consumers to continue to pay for that new toy if it is essentially the same experience they could be having with their existing equipment. That alongside the frustration of retailers having to reserve such large areas for the hardware during the busiest time of the year, we may be witnessing the prime era for the two brands in terms of new equipment.

Of course, one can never underestimate the consumer market, and as long as pretending you are Big In Japan is still fun, there will always be someone ready to throw away the old kits and make way for the new ones.