PDP’s PlayStation Riffmaster Shipped with Misleading Box

There is serious renewed interest in plastic instruments this year with the release of Fortnite Festival taking off in the rhythm game community. After rolling out the Riffmaster guitar to content creators earlier this year in anticipation for a larger release, manufacturer PDP revealed this week that the PlayStation version of the guitar will not be supported on PC for the upcoming Instrument Mode. Only the Xbox version of the Riffmaster will be compatible with PC. The only problem with this? On the box that these content creators shared, the PlayStation guitar is advertised as being compatible with PC.

This debacle, which was instantly noticed by the larger rhythm game community and by creators like @jfosheezy, @aWiseMoose, and @Acai, has immediately drawn the ire of everyone expecting one thing from the box and being told something completely different later. PDP has generated a lot of goodwill with creators in communicating with them and even joking around at points, so it’s a far cry to see this bombshell dropped out of nowhere. Acai noted in a video response: “They told us nothing,” and went on to discover that the only legacy guitars compatible with Instrument Mode at launch are Rock Band 4 Xbox One guitars. Which have been out of stock for more than half a decade.

Beyond the fact that this is bordering on false advertising, PDP was able to cover its tracks with the asterisk denoting “PC compatibility not tested nor endorsed by Sony Interactive Entertainment”. Still, the undeniable purpose for the launch of these guitars was for Fortnite Festival as Rock Band 4 has completed its last downloadable content release. It is disingenuous for PDP to keep fans in the dark, especially when it comes to a peripheral that has been sought after for this long. Here’s hoping PDP can bounce back and restore faith in their product base after this unfortunate mishap.