It means, first, that classic acts can make an easy paycheck licensing their back catalogs to rhythm games, although both publishers are becoming less willing to accept anything except master tapes. With both games shipping with an in-game music store that allows players to browse, listen to tracks, and purchase new songs for the games, the ability to make money pushing classic and up-coming bands is virtually limitless.(Right now the holy grail of music licensing seems to be the Beatles, and it's hard to fathom the amounts of money that Activision and MTV Games would throw at Apple Corps for that music.)

We may be in a frontier mentality with these two popular series, with both companies grabbing as many bands as they can as quickly as they can, but in the end, the consumers are going to be the ones taking it in the pocketbook. These games, not to mention the peripherals that may or may not work between them, are expensive; it would be a shame if rockers who like The Who but who also want to play "Hot for Teacher" have to buy two titles with different hardware.