"Russian parts, American parts, all made in Taiwan!"

On October 28th, 2008, IGN reported that users are complaining on the RedOctane Forums that their Guitar Hero: World Tour drum sets are not responsive.  Complaints range from not registering a note to mis-reading a note when another pad was hit.  the problems are isolated to the snare and cymbal pads however, and as IGN says, both the sensors for those pads are located together on the left side of the unit.  Some industrious users have also decided to post DIY instructions that claim to fix these problems.

Besides the obvious question of what you are supposed to do with your Rock Band 1 band kit now that World Tour is released, one can't help but wonder why developers choose to charge such a high price tag for what really amounts to fisher price toy drums.  The guitars, now sitting at its forth iteration, is starting to show more promise.  The drums however are only in its second generation (first generation for Activision) and the problems continue.  Sure they seem to have fixed the kick pedal but the rest of the mould is still quite questionable.  These instruments have to withstand almost as much abuse as real instruments and for the price, you don't expect them to be professional quality but certainly not Fisher Price (which I dare say some Fisher Price stuff is better made!)

I was very hopeful that the Activision drums would be a better performer than the Rock Band drums, and now with this news, I'm beginning to question whether I want to even pick up either of the kits or just live with my wired Rock Band 1 kit.  That's also not taking into account the Rock Band/Guitar Hero sets are not compatible with each other if you own the PS3 either, despite what Sony reps had said previously.  Activision has confirmed that there is a 90 day warranty on their peripherals and customers experiencing problems should contact them directly (no word on if it's US only).  They also stated that a "drum tuning kit" to be released will help alleviate sensitivity issues with the drums.  This is good news if the problem is with calibration and not hardware.  Somehow, I doubt that it's as simple as that.  I have more faith that it was manufactured improperly than it was mis-calibrated.

However, as of this weekend no video games stores in Calgary are taking in the Rock Band 1 kits for trade-in credit anymore and I doubt they will fetch much on the used market.  I think I'm stuck with them - damn Activision and EA for making me spend $150 on plastic toys that I really didn't want!  *As I go and pick up my pre-order of Guitar Hero World Tour Band Kit...