/rant off

I have been trying to come up with a way to make this post without ranting and I just don't think I can do it. Its about the commerce driving the rhythm games Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
This next bit is some history and you can all probably skip it and head to the end where I start my rant.

/History
Harmonix produced Rockband 1 and 2 and kickstarted this whole craze which caught me by storm also. They realized that people wanted more out of the game and that there was a renewed passion for music in their audience so in the effort to give the people what they want they sold off the guitar hero rights to developer Neversoft and started a new project that would give a full band experience: Rockband (this also had the side effect of getting them out from under all the crazy licensing restrictions they had to accept before anyone believed this game concept would work). Neversoft churns out guitar hero 3 into what Harmonix realized was a market going stale only to see Harmonix's new project once again take over the gaming world and reach the holy grail of video games... casual gamers and hard core gamers alike.
Following suit and trying to maintain the marketshare they thought they had purchased Neversoft releases a full band game that also includes a microphone and drums to give the full band experience: Guitar Hero World Tour. This project is definitely rushed.
Here is where the problem starts. Due to a bunch of lawyers getting into the thick of things, a licensing battle ensues and Guitar Hero World Tour is released with their own set of guitars, drums, and microphone that aren't quite cross compatible with the game everyone already owns (Rockband). In an effort the separate themselves from their competitor they give the guitar a touchpad to use for special effects (that doesn't really enhance the gameplay at all) and add an extra "button" to the drums.
After an uproar from the customers, they get the liscensing thing worked out and when Rockband 2 gets released we find that it is able to use the Guitar Hero drums.

/Rant On
So the state of the gaming world works like this.. Guitar Hero World Tour comes out after Rock Band and everyone gets mad for being forced to by new instruments for the same game, so after a while the Xbox and PS3 got psudo patches to the game that would fix the problem and allow the guitars to work on all games. The Wii versions where delayed so long that it was released with this feature worked in. However, due to the greediness of Neversoft, the Guitar Hero series only works with the Guitar Hero drums since it was designed with an extra "button" giving it 6 drums to simulate instead of Rockband's 5 buttons. If your confused your not alone. Here is a handy chart to help sort out the compatibility mess. It is very sad that something like this is necessary.
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/11/official-guitar/
http://www.joystiq.com/Instrument-Compatibility-Matrix/#Wii

This isn't too much of a problem, the simple solution is to buy the Guitar Hero drums. Unfortunately.. today... you practically can't.
The drums are available as a stand alone instrument for $90. NINETY FUCKING DOLLARS!
Guitar Hero World Tour was sold in a special edition Band Kit version that includes the game itself (normally $50), the drum kit, a guitar, and a microphone for $130.
"Great" you say, "Lets get that". You can't. It is pretty much discontinued now. If you didn't buy it last year, good luck (you could probably get it online, but for some reason that seems silly when I have 3 Best Buys and 5 gamestops within 5 miles of my house). You can't order it from the stores, according the best buy the item is listed as "deleted". Well fuck off. All I wanted to do was buy the damn drums so I could play drums with the new games that just came out Beatles Rock Band. Sure.. i could buy the Beatles rockband full band kit for $140, but the drums won't work with the 2 guitar hero games I already own. The only set of drums that works with all versions of these rythm games is the World Tour drums.. and the only way to get them is pay an outrageous sum of money.. if you can find it instock. (Of the 8 stores mentioned before, only 1 of them has the $90 peices of plastic in stock).

Angered by all of this mess I decided I would just buy Beatles Rock Band and a microphone. Screw the drums.. no one really likes to play them except for me.
So I go to Best Buy to get Beatles Rockband. It is $60. Ouch. I look for a microphone. There are no microphones (except for a $60 Xbox360 wireless one).
What the HELL?!?! One of the HUGE feature of Beatles Rockband is the ability to sing Harmonies! The catch is you need more microphones (you can use up to 3 with the game for the full on Beatles 3 part harmonies).
You would think that a store would put the one accessory people would be most interest to buy out with the game that could potentially generate 2 purchases of said accessory with each sale. If you thought that you are over qualified to act as a Best Buy store manager. No.. what you should do is ignore the fact that most of your customers will want a second or third microphone for the game and only stock the game itself.
As the consumer you do have the option of trying to find a generic Logitech USB microphone.. it doesn't have to be a special one to work with the game. Coincidentaly, Best Buy had some microphones in stock.. in the musician center on the other side of the store. The microphones where $60. (If you could find one sold specifically for the games, they go for $20).

Faced with the reality that the only way to get my wife to play the game with me was to spend $120 for the just the game and the microphone I opted to spend the full $140 to buy the Beatles Rock band Full band kit. This is essentially the Rock band 2 band kit including the drums that only work on rock band games.
Oh.. I forgot to mention the Beatles Rock band Limited Edition set! It is $230! What do you get extra? NOTHING! The guitar is shaped like the Violin Bass that Paul McCartney used and the drum set has a large round piece of plastic that looks like the Beatle's iconic Ludwig drum. Oh.. and its wireless instead of wired. I guess that 1 extra bluetooth modules for the drum set cost alot.

I realized today that come Christmas a new Guitar Hero full band game will be released and I will once again have the opportunity to guy the Guitar Hero drums for a reasonable price. Yah free trade.