DJ Hero creative director, Jamie Jackson, in an interview with Official Nintendo Magazine, spoke about the need for the soundtrack to become more diversified in the sequel in order to succeed.
“I think we weighted a bit too much hip-hop in the first game. When you looked at the mixlist, I think it was about 60 per cent hip hop and all the other genres took the rest…We wanted to change that and show a balance, because DJ Hero isn’t a hip hop game. It has hip hop music in I, because hip hop culture is a big part of DJing, but so is dance, so is drum n bass, so is techno – there are loads of genres and we’ve got a great opportunity to cater to it all.”
Looking at the DJ Hero 2 setlist it’s easy to see this design focus in action as a larger focus on Dance and Pop music has been established by featuring songs by Justice, David Guetta, and the GaGa. It seems that the theme would be encompassing all styles of DJs, but for better or worse it is still squarely focused on popular top-40 music (with a few oddities thrown in). Unfortunately, with the creation of a game comes licensing issues which for some DJs and styles make it if not impossible then a huge hassle to appear in the game (I’m looking at you Girl Talk). The reason certain songs are represented in multiple mixes simply acts as an added value proposition, but it is stuff like this that could ultimately lead to DJ Hero’s failure. I think the real lesson to be learned is that the more music, be it hip hop, pop, electronic, or dub, the better.
Oddly, I think that DJ Hero would probably have much greater success if placed on the PC. Not only would you grow your potential customer base, but you would also open up the platform for expansion beyond it’s singular use in a rhythm game. Ok, mainly I just want it so some drivers are developed and I can use it as a MIDI controller for some ridiculous house party DJ antics in Traktor Studio. A guy can wish can’t he?
Look for DJ Hero 2 which again isn’t a hip hop game (Unlike Def Jam Rapstar) on store shelves next Tuesday for the 360, PS3, and Wii.
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