Konami’s lawsuit against Harmonix is coming back to haunt
them, as Harmonix has sued Konami.
Konami sued Rock Band developer Harmonix and its parent
company Viacom last year for infringement on its Guitar Freaks controllers.
Guitar Freaks was released 10 years ago for arcades; Konami,
however, failed to capitalize on the console market in that time.
Enter Harmonix, who made the first two Guitar Hero games
before moving onto Rock Band. After immense success for the music games, Konami
decided to jump in with Rock Revolution, which received poor reviews.
Now, though, Harmonix is countersuing Konami, claiming that
Harmonix actually improved on the controller design, and that Konami infringed
on Harmonix’s patents with the release of Rock Revolution.
Both lawsuits seek to stop the other company from selling
its music game – how this ridiculous Battle
of the Bands will pan out, though, will be up to the courts.