Well, this has sucked.

In Rock Band mode the guitars just keep pressing X (green) in turbo mode, making it impossible to control the game. After some searching around it seems like this is an issue with Rock Band 2 and the way to fix it is to set the controller to Guitar Hero mode.

Now for the fun part, apparently firmware 3.10 broke the controllers. Well it didnt break them, it just made them not get their connection straight.

To fix this I made sure I had one Dual Shock taking slot 1. Then I proceeded to plug in the ‘footpedal’ in Rock Band mode, this should make the controller turn Blue. Then you need to go into Guitar Hero mode and hopefully it keeps the Blue light when it auto-adjusts. If it doesn’t then you need to keep turning the knob back to Rock Band and re-syncing until you do get the Blue light and then go into Guitar Hero mode.

This might take a few tries. Have patience. It sucks, I know!

Some have suggested using two Dual-Shocks so that the guitar is actually controller 3. This worked for me as well but i didn’t have any better luck than with just the one controller.

What if I have 2 Nyko Frontman guitars?

Its the same process for both I did one guitar first, and then the other (Blue and then Orange). It has been taking me like 10 minutes to get them to sync correctly, but once i do, they just work.

This is not the nicest of solutions, and I am honestly quite annoyed by this situation but the guitars work and I got the game for cheap. I’ll search around tonight and update this post if I find any better solutions.

UPDATE (11/29/2009) :

If the controllers come up SOLID RED in Guitar Hero mode, turn the knob back and forth (to Rock Band and then back to Guitar Hero) this will toggle the controller and make it try and find a new open channel. Wait for it to go to a new solid color, if it goes red again just turn the knob once more, repeat this until you get a different color. Its really not a pretty solution. *sigh*

This last article is exactly what I’m talking about. Sony needs to stop pretending like they know whats best for everyone and start listening to what the people are saying. If we want Netflix streaming… give us Netflix streaming. It is of no cost to you, and I already have a Netflix account. How else do you think I would be watching the Blu-Ray movies you say I should be watching? Buying them at $35 bucks a pop?

RIIIIIIIIIGGGHHTTT….

Why is there no video podcast download function in the PS3? If I could get home and just sit on my couch and watch TekZilla it’d be awesome. This is something the PS3 -can do- right now, yet they are not letting it do it. They are concentrating on selling us movies through the PSN video store that are DRMed to hell and therefore useless unless you plan on only watching them on your PS3 or PSP. Yes, they wont play on your iPhone, so sorry.

If Sony figures out that the future is in open DRM standards and interoperability (or no DRM at all) and on accessibility to all the forms of entertainment that there are available and not just to your walled garden. IF they figure this out before Microsoft does, the PS3 has a fighting chance.

Sony needs to give us everything. Talk to the PlayOn guys and get half those streams on the PS3. Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon Video On Demand. Give us choice by having too many choices, not by ‘selecting between the movies on the video store’. As long as they do not give us all the options that there are out there for video delivery, not because of software/hardware limitations but because it is a business desicion to try and force you to buy videos through their store, they need to The Fuck Shut Up.

They are defending themselves by claiming that the consumer (which already spent more than enough money in their over-priced box) would not want to use the subscriptions he/she has already and would prefer to spend more money in the solutions that Sony deems worthy. This is foolish and I’d rather if they just said nothing, and started talking about all the great exclusive games they are getting to the platform instead of these media choices.

Exclusive games like Tekken, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone 2.

I have seen what I can do with the current incarnation of the system and here are my overall thoughts.

1. The Stack System is quite interesting, but lacking.
   The way that you move between ‘spaces’ in Home is that there are a set of stacks. There is your main Home stack which includes your apartment, The Arcade, The Mall and the Central Plaza. Then there is also a stack for every other property. For instance right now you can go to the Farcry2 space and the Uncharted space. You zoom out and there are 3 stacks on a ‘grid’ and you can select which of them you would like to be joining. I think it is sad that you can’t just walk around the central plaza and find a space (All along I had this dream that it would be like Disney World, you would just walk from the Indiana Jones set to the Muppet’s Theatre, I guess that was just  me.) I understand why they made the decision but what when there’s 20 – 30 spaces? They have to figure out a better way to organize things.
2. Pricing needs to be re-evaluated.
   Everything you buy in Home you do with real money. Unlike Microsoft’s Live service, where you buy credits (or as Shane Bettenhausen calls them ‘Spacebucks’) PSN is 100% grounded on real money. This is awesome because you know exactly how much you are paying for any game (or item in Home’s case) and you don’t have to figure out what the conversion is (I believe 800 points is $10.00 right now), and Sony can’t just depreciate your credits (or increase their value) artificially. $1 == $1 on PSN. Which means those jeans you just bought at the Home Mall really cost $1, it wasn’t a joke, and you did not buy a ‘set’ of things. You bought a different colored pattern on the legs of your avatar. You can also purchase new ‘living’ spaces. Although right now the only other living space that is available is a ‘Summer Home’ for $5. I’d really like for them to stop doing this, but they are being very successful and they won’t. In reality I believe what I should be pointing out is that I would like them to start coming out with these items as packs and for them to revise how much each item costs. $1 per item is preposterous. Which brings me to…
3. Make the sponsors more involved.
   If i got to a Diesel store in my Local Mall, I should get a coupon for that same pair of jeans on the PS3. Cross-world promotion like that would only increase the visibility of the PlayStation 3 to the mom and dads that shop in malls and are not buying PS3s right now yet all looked for Wiis. Also there should be a way that you can win the items (or at least some) by doing PSN/Home related activities.

With all this said. I have a final thought.

In order for PlayStation Home to succeed. It MUST be a game.

There, I said it. If PlayStation Home is not a game the confusion of what is the ‘PlayStation 3′ will continue. I should be able to decide, “I’m going to play Home today”. It should be somewhere that I can win points, gain levels, do quests or tasks. It should be a free, sponsored, Everquest. I really would not mind going through the Coca-Cola valley (which obviously has a Coca-Cola waterfall + river) and finding 4 hidden bottle caps and returning back to the wise Polar Bear for a cool Coca-Cola jukebox in my apartment. I know this is possible too! Since Red Bull’s area will have a Red Bull Air-race mini game, where you can fly a prop plane. It is yet to be said how you will fly the plane however, right now if you go to The Arcade you can play bowling with other people but because the bowling lanes are not instanced you have to wait till somebody ends a game before joining it which is very dumb and does not solve any problems.

Those are my thoughts on Home. I will report back when I read that Red Bull’s area has been added, but honestly there’s just nothing to do there since all the imaginary arcade machines and bowling lanes are always taken.

You go around trying to find specters in every ‘garden’. To get to the specters though, you need to destroy the passing flowers to get the pollen to fill up the new seeds so they can sprout when you jump to them. I am enjoying it quite a bit. Oh, and it allows you to record the gameplay, and upload it to YouTube right from the game itself, although I wish it was a bit better quality. Here’s me sucking the first time I go into garden 3