Harmonix's creative director Alex Rigopulos has spoken about the competition between Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live as the two games go head-to-head this month.
Rigopulos doesn't expect his studio's game to outsell Activision's effort, and says that's okay. Speaking to GamesIndustry International, he commented, "There's not ambition or expectation that we will outsell Guitar Hero, that we're going up against Activision. But we don't need to. We can actually have a very healthy business serving a much more modest core, a small fraction of the people who played the game previously, and I think we're perfectly content to do that."
The game, which released yesterday, works with existing guitar peripherals, which Rigopulos said is a big advantage for them as it "frees us from the need to manufacture seven million units of peripherals."
He noted that is a significant change from the "slug-fest" of the period in which the two franchises were at their most popular when Activisions and MTV were "trying to build as much inventory as possible to command the channel."
Rigopulos continued, "that led to an oversupply situation that was kind of a financial nightmare at the end of the day for both parties. Thinking about that, I still have PTSD from that."
Harmonix is working with peripheral firm Mad Catz to make new instruments for the game.
Guitar Hero Live will not support existing guitars, it releases on October 20th.