Can I use a PS3 Rock Band guitar to play PS2 Guitar Hero games?

Question

I have Guitar Hero 1 and 2, and I really want to play them on my backwards compatible PS3. The game loads fine, but as soon as it does the guitar starts blinking like it won't connect to the system. This is ridiculous, as you can play at least 1 with a normal controller, and the guitar is just another controller. Why won't it connect? Is there something that I can do to make it work? If not, it's not really worth having a backwards compatible PS3, as I'll have to keep my PS2 anyways.

Answer 1

I don't think ps2 and ps3 have the same controller ports...



ps3 usb or controller ports are smaller than ps2

Answer 2

Since the previous answer wasn't very clear I will explain something. Official Rock Band PlayStation controllers are USB based and work with both the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 (both have USB ports on the front), in fact when you buy the boxed sets, the only difference between them is the game in the box, the instruments are otherwise identical (the "PlayStation 2" instruments still have the PlayStation 3 Home button on them). So if you own Rock Band for the PlayStation 2, you can use the same instruments.



That being said though the previous answer was correct about the fact you can't play Guitar Hero using Rock Band instruments, it's due to Activision and EA refusing to co-operate during that console generation over compatibility of instruments forcing consumers to either buy third party controllers that had the hardware to be able to work between the games or buy separate sets for each game. Even playing those games on a modern PlayStation 3 doesn't change anything as it was a problem with the games themselves. In this console generation with Guitar Hero: World Tour, Activision finally got the message people didn't want tons of plastic instruments between separate games so they finally got Rock Band instruments working with the game on the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360, the PlayStation 2 version while better than other Guitar Hero games will still not work with Rock Band guitars (but it can use the drum set from either Rock Band).



Now all that being said, I have seen a few adapters that claim to get around this, but a lot of them are shoddy products and most have some problem with instruments, whether one feature doesn't work, they don't work at all, etc. I've yet to see one that does everything perfectly. So in short while you can use a Rock Band guitar for the PlayStation 3 on the PlayStation 2, you can't on any Guitar Hero game released for the PS2.

Answer 3

Yes, as with you I also have an original PS3 that plays older-system games.



Sadly, the ps2 guitar controllers and ps2 GH games go hand-in-hand. The only thing you can do is buy a converter, which I believe is called TAC? Anyway, even that has it's bugs (for example you can't hold down green or orange and activate starpower at the same time). In addition, obviously, you'll also need a ps2 "SG" guitar to go with it.



And just a note -- GH is one of the only older games that aren't playable on a backwards-compatible PS3, so I guess whether or not a backwards-compatible PS3 is worth it or not depends entirely on whether you own any other ps2 games that actually use the standard dualshock controller.

Answer 4

Im sorry but no.