Harmonix Details Rock Band 4’s Absence From PC

Rock Band 4 will be a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game, which means PC is missing from the list of platforms. It's a conscious decision on Harmonix's part, and the company recently detailed the reasons behind that decision.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Harmonix Product Manager Daniel Sussman discussed the uncertainty surrounding the PC market and how that influenced the company's console-only focus.

"One has to do with the fact the library is not there on PC," he said. "The library is there on Xbox and PlayStation. So, for players who want it on PC, really you're looking at a new audience that hasn't played before, and I don't know to what degree there is an audience for new players who have never played Rock Band before on the PC. That's one piece of it."

Piracy is another big factor when it comes to the Rock Band series, and Sussman also addressed that in the interview.

"The other piece is all the security issues, to be perfectly frank," he explained. "There's something comforting about the closed network that comes along with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. That's important to our partners in the music industry. Not to say that's an unsolvable problem."

Harmonix followed up with a statement to Eurogamer to expand on Sussman's piracy comments.

We're not concerned about software piracy on PC. We have and will release games for PC. In fact, last year we released A City Sleeps for PC, Mac, and Linux. As Daniel stated, the security in question is related to licensed music in the game. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have robust functionality in that area. It's added security that's handled by the platform holders.

    

In the case of more open platforms like PC, we're responsible for that. It's something we can build. It's not off the table for the future, however we're first focusing on delivering Rock Band 4 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this holiday.

Harmonix doesn't rule out the possibility of a future PC release of Rock Band 4 though. According to Sussman, "if we determine there is a market for PC, then we'd be crazy to ignore it."

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