I own both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band for the Xbox360. In many ways they're pretty much the same game. And now that they'll both have the same instrument sets (which will be compatible) they're REALLY the same game, only differing in the smaller features and minor instrument differences. But it's still not hard to find somebody who likes one more than the other.

I ended up liking Rock Band more, for these reasons:
- I like Harmonix's philosophy on downloadable content. All the stuff I bought for Rock Band 1 will work in Rock Band 2.
- It's more evident which notes you can hammer on.
- Rock Band has a cleaner, nicer interface. Guitar Hero's menus look like something that flew out of Keith Richards' butt when he farted. I know some people prefer that grungy look, but I like it clean.
- I got used to the Rock Band guitar. A lot of people hated it, but I like that I can't hear the strum bar clicking.
- I don't care about celebrity guitarists. Neversoft is good at cramming celebrities I don't care about into their games, as I've seen since the Tony Hawk games.
- At least until Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band's the only one with customizable characteres. I LOVE customizing characters. I don't care much for Lars Umlat and his buddies.

Do you have a preference between the two games?

I also prefer Rock Band. I just don't think that Neversoft has the same sense of rhythm; the songs just don't feel as natural. There's a very distinct difference in gameplay between GHII and GHIII (and not just the graphical changes). Going off the instruments, it's interesting to see just how much GH World Tour is ripping off the Rock Band Guitar controller, though I have to admit I like the changes they're making for the drum controller, if only because it let's you use Star Power at any point in the song, instead of waiting for drum fills.

Rock Band

mainly because of Harmonix's download and peripheral philosophy. and AC/DC

Originally for the PS3, Harmonix wanted to release a patch that woud allow all 3rd party controllers and Red Octane's Les Paul, but Activision prevented Sony from releasing the patch.

I started with playing both the GH2 and Rock Band guitars, this was when only my friend had it. I prefered the GH2 controller because the 1st generation of RB guitars had strumming problems. Which they later fixed by making them hall effect instead of contact plated.

And then I got more own set for the PS3, with a 2nd gen guitar, and now I prefer the RB guitar over the GH, mainly because it's easier for me to move my hand quickly on the neck.

I'm wondering if EA would fix the star power problem with 2nd gen guitars. If not, I'd be raking in cash fixing up other people's guitar.

Alas, Rockband for me too.

I can't stand the guitar hero guitar.

It has a lot of my favourite songs on it. Guitar hero doesn't. It has downloadable content that I actually like. Guitar hero doesn't. Most of all, you can tell what's happening in Rockband. Guitar hero's just too messy for me.

I don't play either games religiously but here's what I say:

Rockband - It looks better and there's more instruments and shiz

Guitar Hero - Got better songs (IMO)

But I prefer Rockband so...

my secret love of singing leads me to rock band. the guitar is harder on guitar hero (although the timing is a little off in GH) but pleasant on rockband, also, rock band looks sooo much better.

dance dance revolution, dammit!

ddr kicks ass. i love guitar hero, haven't ever played rock band, but... but... but but but... but ddr! dance dance, man, dance dance!

I tend to prefer Rock Band, although both companies do things which irritate me. While the instruments are supposed to be compatible, drum controllers won't be fully compatible between the three games coming out since they have different configurations. Rock Band will still use the four pads and a pedal approach, Guitar Hero will use five pads and a pedal and Konami will be using six pads and a pedal. Rock Band 2's drum controller will have ports for adding optional cymbal pads to make it compatible (which I've heard will be sold separately), but otherwise, it won't be possible to use the controllers across all competing games. Guitar controllers and mics will likely work across the board, though.

Guitar Hero's philosophy when it comes to DLC seems to be more about making people pay for content multiple times. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next game, most of the DLC songs were from past games AGAIN. Seems every time they change the gameplay, they sell you back the songs you've already paid for, which is pretty lame. I like that Rock Band is keeping their old DLC songs backwards compatible, at least. I have more DLC songs than anything else on my game, so it's good to know I can still play them when I get the next game.

Song libraries are about the same to me, they both have a mixture of songs I want to play and songs I don't care about, although DLC give Rock Band a much larger library. Graphically, I find less distractions in Rock Band, which is a good thing. Animations are decent enough that people watching won't be bored, but aren't something I'm going to want to watch while I'm playing. I actually wasn't too keen on the custom song animations in Guitar Hero 2.

Customization is also a nice feature and it looks like the character creator may be expanded some in the next iteration, which I have no objections to. The current one is limited to the point where it seems like you're just seeing alternate costumes for the same two or three characters over and over again throughout the game. I also hated the new vs mode in Guitar Hero 3. I can think of so many better ways to make a vs mode.

I've never really cared about the guitar controllers. I can use either and it doesn't make a difference to me, although the Guitar Hero controllers do seem to be constructed better and sturdier. I also like the replaceable faceplates, now if only they had some decent replacements.

I don't like the idea that Harmonix is caving to MS with timed exclusivity on the new game. Even though I'll be getting the 360 version (it's the only game I play on that worthless system and I've invested too much in DLC to rebuy the game), I find it kind of offensive on a game that's been touted as a multiplatform experience for them to delay certain versions for no particularly good reasons, especially around the holiday season when it will be in the highest demand. It's not cool to punish your cutomers for buying one system over another.

I've read a majority of the posts here and I've wondered, what about Guitar Hero 4: World Tour?? Personally I think it'll be even better than Rock Band 2 (even though the whole downloadable content deal is nice) only because it apparently gives you a chance to record your own songs along with drums/vocals.

Wait, did I bring this up too early?

I'd really be down with the custom music deal if I was a musician and could make a song. I'm a sucker for user-made content. Of course, if they let me download other peoples' written music, that would be really cool.

What will probably happen for me is that if GH: World Tour actually does turn out to be good, I'll buy the game only and just use my Rock Band instruments on it (minus the drums... RB1 drums won't work). Of course, this is dependent on what they do about those silly guitar duels. I didn't like those.

Rock band, as I like the bass and the drums. I can't play the drums at all, but I'm not bad at bass, so I like it. Also, rock and has Dani California, which just rocks.

I've been playing Rock Band 2 lately. I'm still using my Rock Band 1 instruments. It's a pretty good game. It's basically more of Rock Band 1, almost as if it was a massive expansion pack to the original game... I say massive because it adds 84 songs (compared to RB1's 50-something) plus sometime soon RB2 owners will be able to download 20 more songs for free. I'll bet those come out right around the time the new Guitar Hero launches.

I spent $5 to export my RB1 library to my hard drive so I could play it in RB2. This is a REALLY neat feature. Now I have a HUGE load of songs without having to switch discs, and Rock Band 2 occasionally rolls your RB1 content and downloaded songs into the game when you're playing random setlists.

I had at one time been tempted to get the new Rock Band 2 instruments, but I think my RB1 instruments will be fine. The improvements don't seem large enough to get new ones. But I'll probably get the new Guitar Hero guitar when World Tour comes out.