ame Informer Online got a chance to talk with Bryan Lam, senior PR specialist for RedOctane, about its Guitar Hero franchise. An Xbox 360 port of Guitar Hero 2 is on the way, and there are plans to bring the series to the PlayStation 3. During our conversation we touched upon downloadable content, console-specific content and the constantly evolving world of guitar-shaped video-game controllers.

Game Informer: Is the song list identical to what’s available in Guitar Hero 2 for the PlayStation 2? How much more are you going to offer people just on the disc itself, without talking about downloadable content.

Bryan Lam: All the songs that are on the PlayStation 2 are going to be on the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is actually going to have 10 additional songs that are actually on the game disc, so there are going to be eight songs on the main set list that are new. You’ll have one new song in each set and two new unlockables. So there’s going to be 10 total on the game disc. As far as downloadable content goes, we’re not exactly sure how many songs will be at launch, but we have a lot of deals going on right now.

GI: Are you guys planning on going the iTunes route, where you’re going to sell individual songs, or are you going to do themed packs? How are you guys going to approach it?

Lam: There are ideas for both, definitely, and we’re still working with the logistics as to which one will work better. Both of those ideas are definitely on the table right now. Which one will be at launch? I don’t know yet.

GI: So you’re planning on having downloadable content available at launch and then continuing?

Lam: At this moment, it’s currently scheduled for launch. As to what downloadable content we’ll have, it’s going to be your typical Xbox 360 game that you have on Xbox Live Marketplace, where you can download picture packs, themes and also with us, songs. We’ll have trailers and all that on there, too.

GI: What are the major differences, cosmetically, on the guitar controller between the Xbox version—outside of the white coloring—that’s obvious.

Lam: As far as features wise, all of that’s still being confirmed, but as I’m sure you guys already saw what’s on the controller, there are a lot of ideas that we have for it. Essentially, we had to build the controller for different features and ideas that we have down the line. Those aren’t necessarily at launch, but what we want to do for it later. We can’t just continue building a lot of different guitars as we go along, because of the budget that we have and the logistics that it takes to even build something like that. We wanted to build everything that we wanted to do within the X-Plorer guitar all at once.

GI: Consumers obviously appreciate that, because for people who have already bought the PS2 controllers for Guitar Hero, pretty soon people are going to have to build guitar racks for all their Guitar Hero controllers.

Lam: As you saw with the PS2 Guitar Hero 2, we have the white, the red and the wireless as well, and then you have the third-party controllers--so there’s definitely a lot of controllers out there already. Initially with the Xbox 360, you’re going to see the X-Plorer guitar, but what we have down the line for additional guitars for the Xbox 360, we haven’t confirmed that yet. There’s definitely some good stuff that we have planned for, and we have ideas for things that you might see down the road.

GI: So you’re attempting to make it future-proof, we noticed an interesting Ethernet kind of port on the Xbox 360 controller. Is there anything you can say about that? We’re obviously thinking pedals, but what other things do you think you could use that for?

Lam: (Laughs) At this point, I don’t even want to speculate, just because I could get killed. But if you’ve thought of it, we’ve thought of it, and whatever it’s going to be, it’s going to be gnarly and everyone’s going to love it. But obviously it’s going to be a really cool feature that we have planned for.

GI: One thing that we noticed, and it might just be with the controller that we have, is that the strum bar feels a little looser and strums a little better than its PlayStation 2 counterpart. Is that something that you’re working on? It feels more natural.

Lam: We looked at what worked best on the PS2 controllers with the SG--along with the feedback with all of the fans and consumers--and saw what they said and we just made tweaks to it. On the white SG to the red SG, there are little tweaks on that, as well, that might not be noticeable, but there are little things; the whammy bar was tweaked a little bit, the strum bar was reinforced a little bit, along with the actual cord, and the frets were raised a little bit as well. But little things like that were tweaked from the first guitar to the second guitar on Guitar Hero 2, and with the X-Plorer we just added everything from all the feedback that we got from the PS2 version and all the third-party controllers as well. We saw what people loved about that and tried to do the best we could.

GI: Going on the future-proofing, we noticed that it’s a corded controller. Why not just go wireless right from the outset?

Lam: Isn’t it more authentic with the wire? (laughs)

GI: Well, yeah, but we like the wireless version of the PlayStation 2 controllers, and the Xbox 360 is all about cutting the wires.

Lam: We want the wireless just as much as everyone wants the wireless. It’s just what it is. With gaming, you need wireless. At this point we don’t have it, but you guys can certainly look forward to something in the future--because it’s something we’re working on and obviously want to have.

GI: You don’t think it something that’ll be at launch?

Lam: I can’t see at this point whether it will be or not.