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(More customer reviews)First thing's first: On 9/25/2009, an update was released to enable functionality of this microphone with all Rock Band games (thus, previous reviews mentioning that issue are now moot). I can confirm that the mic now does "work" with all Rock Band games.
However, the functionality of this microphone is utterly horrid (with the Rock Band games). In short: there is a very noticeable lag when singing into the microphone. The lag causes you to hear an echo when singing in game and causes your timing and pitch to go out of whack - making it near impossible to play songs on harder skill levels. In order to confirm that there was definitely an un-fixable issue with the wireless microphone, I did a little test and played a specific song on both the stock/corded and wireless microphones (both multiple times). Each time, I got double (sometimes triple) the score with the stock/corded microphone. It appears that the lag introduced by the wireless microphone is throwing off the timing, and it may have an issue with the pitch as well (however, I can't confirm the latter).
Let me stop for a second and state that I have exhausted all avenues of trying to correct this problem. I've tried calibrating the audio/video lag in the Rock Band settings, and I've tried switching audio sources (from TV to receiver). This lag issue is a result of a poor wireless connection between the microphone and the game console - meaning that no in-game setting can fix the issue. It should also be noted that numerous users on the Rock Band forums are complaining about this very same issue with both the wireless microphone and the "Lips" microphones.
Is this something that can be corrected through a future update? doubtful. First of all, the issue is likely hardware related. If there is just a laggy connection between the microphone and the xbox, then no software can fix that. Further, it took about 8 months since introduction for Rock Band to issue this update (on 9/25) so I highly doubt that their development team is going to jump to fix this particular issue. Plus, the microphone still "functions" - it's just a much worse experience than using the corded microphone.
So in conclusion, I absolutely recommend against purchasing this microphone. At $50, you're paying a lot of money to remove the wire from your existing microphone. If the thing doesn't work just as well as your corded mic, it's certainly not worth $50. Also, if you're really into getting high scores through the vocal sections, you will encounter nothing but frustration with the timing issues. Personally, I rarely even sing and I couldn't deal with the lag and the echo, so I know that it'll really irritate the hard core singers.
If you absolutely must go "all wireless" with your Rock Band setup, I'd advise you to wait and see if Rock Band officially announces a fix. If not, make sure you have an easy means to return the mic in the event that the lag affects you.
Happy gaming!
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The Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone lets you sing and talk with certain Xbox games that support the Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone.
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