Creator hints at Latin music and subscription fees

In an interview with the Seattle Times, Guitar Hero creator Kai Huang has hinted at a number of future directions for the music game series.

The wide-ranging discussion with business journo Brier Dudley touches on a number of tantalising subjects, but the one that’s bound to elicit groans from most of the gaming community is Huang’s suggestion that a subscription model for GH updates is definitely on the cards.

“That’s definitely one of the things we would love to do,” he said. “There are a lot of issues around music licensing. Consumers want it; I know I want it. We’re trying to make that happen.”

Whether or not this is a plan to replace the current model, where customers can pick and choose from a massive range of DLC, isn’t known. But it sounds unlikely that there’s been a massive consumer demand for a monthly GH fee for extra content.

Other topics are of a more positive slant, depending on your musical persuasions. Huang and his team at RedOctane view the DJ Hero series as bringing music games to a whole new audience, and he sees no reason why the GH series shouldn’t be doing the same.

“We’re really just at the beginning of music games. What we love and what we’re constantly looking at is, how do you expose people to new music and new instruments? In the U.S., country music is obviously very popular. Globally, classical music has always been very interesting. Latin music — there are just so many different genres of music and instruments that haven’t been tapped into yet.”

He’s also very interested in Natal, saying that Microsoft’s motion sensor is something that the GH team is “definitely exploring”, citing examples of on-screen characters mimicking a player’s movements.

Looks like our lampshade-worrying windmills might finally be an in-game reality, then.