Music rhythm games are back with a vengeance this year with Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live, but with prices revealed for Rock Band 4 it might be a bit difficult for an Australian buyer to rationalize the purchase. Australia already sees price increases with most games. Where in America you're paying $60 for a new game, Australians are paying the equivalent of around $74, and the prices to get Rock Band 4 and all of its equipment will leave a sore dent in your wallet.
Home Entertainment Services, the Australian distributor for all Mad Catz products, had the prices of the bundles revealed and checked by Kotaku Australia yesterday, and it doesn't bode well for those down under. Below I have included a table showing just how much more expensive Rock Band 4 becomes as soon as you're wanting to pick it up in Australia.
We see the price of a base game is the same difference as we are used to—it's still a price hike but one that isn't out of the norm. The first step up where an American pays an extra $70 to get a guitar with the game, Australians will pay a whopping $150 ($111 USD). To put it in an even better perspective, if you were to add $70 more to the price of the Band-A-Box Bundle, you could purchase a new 1TB Xbox One with 4 games. When Kotaku spoke to Home Entertainment Services about the price increase they explained that they are high because the stock is purchased directly from Europe as opposed to the U.S.
From this the best news to remember from is that while you might have to pay a lot to get Harmonix's new and improved instruments, there will be adapters available for your old Rock Band instruments, so you can use them on the next gen versions.
Are you willing to pay $500 for a game and a couple of instruments? Are you already trying to figure out where you're old instruments are collecting dust?
