Importing Guitar Hero World Tour songs into Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (Wii)

Before I address the main thrust of this article, allow me to indulge in a little background.

When the ThoughtonBOT and I first started our adventure into fake plastic rock, it was with the original Guitar Hero, on the PlayStation 2.  We had already whetted our appetites for the fake plastic instrument genre (also known as music or rhythm games) with the sadly mostly-forgotten Donkey Konga on the GameCube, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into.  At least, we thought we did.  Since that time, our collection of fake plastic instruments has grown to exceed the number of limbs possessed between us.

Of course, it's not really the new instruments that drive us to continue playing, it's new songs.  And one of the easiest ways of getting new songs is by buying a new game -- arguably, it's the only reason, once you're set up with one of the Guitar Hero or Rock Band games, since there is little innovation from title to title.  Actually, I don't entirely believe that last statement, and find myself spoilt by later offerings such as Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, that allow up to 4 players using any combination of instruments (including multiple microphones, despite what some internet sources claim).  As such, I prefer to import the songs from previous versions into the later games.

There are some caveats for those unfamiliar with the limitations.  The first is that not all of the songs can be imported.  Generally, it's about half, sometimes less.  And there's a small one-time fee associated with the import.  On the Wii specifically, storage of the songs can be a consideration (my 2GB 4GB SD card holds my songs, and is groaning under the weight of them all).  Finally, you need to own the games new, since there's a unique code on the back of the manuals that can be used only once to import the songs.

And there's my problem.  We skipped over Guitar Hero: World Tour (the 4th title in the Guitar Hero line), going straight from Guitar Hero 3 to Guitar Hero 5.  Now, craving the songs available on World Tour, we bought a copy, and set about readying the process of importing them into Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.  I was familiar with the requirements, having already done it with Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits to good success, and eagerly held my manual in hand to input the verification code.

There wasn't one.

Apparently, Guitar Hero: World Tour manuals for the Wii in Europe don't have these codes.  Precisely why this oversight occurred is probably something to do with how Activision anticipated the extent they'd support downloadable content on the Wii, and it turning out to be a great deal more than they initially planned for.  However, trying to import the songs on Warriors on Rock still required a code to be input.  Why?  I have no idea.  Perhaps yet another oversight.

I tried looking all through the Activision support site -- which, if you've never done it, is an exercise in circular logic if ever there was one.  I've had to contend with this issue before, when a fault developed with the Guitar Hero 3 disc (which went on to mysteriously resolve itself, perhaps due to a system update).  The site will tell you to choose a region, and since I'm part of the pariah community of video gamers that doesn't live in the US, I have to admit this up front.  Then I have to find the game I want support for (I can choose between Guitar Hero: World Tour and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock), and then look for the specific issue that requires resolution.  At this point, the article helpfully says this solution is for the US and Canada only, and to get international support, please select a region.  Yep, I'm back at square one.

To cut out the parts where I swore and even contemplated calling the helpline, I found resolution in an unexpected way, and that, more than using this article to rant about how dreadful Activision is at giving support, is why I hope people will read this, so they too can use this knowledge to import as they please.

Instead of importing into Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, I used Guitar Hero 5.  And that didn't ask for the code.  It just needed to verify I had a savefile from Guitar Hero: World Tour, and was happy with that as proof that I owned the game.

So, I'll conclude by bolding that advice:

Use GUITAR HERO 5 to import songs from GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR.  You can then use them in GUITAR HERO: WARRIORS OF ROCK as you please once downloaded.