Every publisher encourages people to pre-order their games, but Harmonix has a good reason for you to do so for Rock Band 4.
Other publishers offer exclusive DLC or something like that as pre-order incentives. Harmonix however is encouraging people to pre-order Rock Band 4 for a different reason.
Harmonix CEO, Steve Janiak, was recently interviewed by IGN. It looks like demand for Rock Band 4 has exceeded their expectations. This may result in a shortage of hardware reaching retail stores. Harmonix said they “can’t guarantee hardware for everyone” on launch day.
Harmonix strongly encourages people to pre-order Rock Band 4 if you want the game on time for these holidays. They cannot estimate how long it will take to manufacture more instruments for you to play. If things are so crazy, they might not be able to ship new instruments for the game until 2016.
Rock Band 4 has been scheduled to be out Holiday 2015. You can be sure a lot of customers would love to play the game on Christmas day. If you don’t want to miss out, pre-ordering the game means you will have access to the game earlier rather than later.
Harmonix has yet to confirm if your old instruments are to be compatible for Rock Band 4. However, they’re said to be trying really hard to make this a possibility.