My wallet already hurts. I'll get the MIDI adapter and use an existing keyboard, so at least I only need to buy the game itself at first.
That's no small investment - I hear the adapter costs $40 (can't remember where I heard that, it might even have been on one of the RFN E3 specials).
I appreciate Harmonix for, you know, actually doing something new with this iteration of Rock Band, although I've already voiced how totally sick I am of this genre. Still though, there are some concerns I have about the addition of the keyboard.
First and foremost, how will it meld with the set-list? I'm willing to bet that many of the songs chosen for Rock Band 3 have no keyboard piece, so what, will players be unable to use it in these songs? Or will they throw together a note chart to let you play keyboard in this songs? Or will they have to be extremely selective and only use songs with keyboard parts? That could be a problem.
Secondly, this Pro mode... I can't wrap my head around how the game could keep up when the player is using a full-sized keyboard. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, even when using every key, you still only see two octaves on screen at any given time. Well, suppose you're playing chords on one end of the keyboard and playing the melody way over on the other end at the same time -- how is the game going to show you all this?
They're likely aware of these potential issues but I would like to know what they're doing about them. Even though I don't plan on buying the game.