Charles who? Why, that would be Charles Huang, co-founder and COO of Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane, who has revealed how he is "irked" whenever people associate rival music title Rock Band with mega-publisher EA. Speaking in an interview with GameSpot, Huang said that calling the multi-instrumental Rock Band an EA title was "misleading", and pointed out that while EA was distributing the title, the company had nothing to do with the development or publishing of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title.

"Rock Band has been getting a lot of attention," conceded Huang when asked about the game that will provide his own company’s Guitar Hero III with some serious competition this Holiday season. "I think there are a couple of things that are interesting about it in the marketplace. For one, it's always kind of irked me personally the association with EA. Everyone likes to call it EA's Rock Band, but it doesn't make any sense to me because it's a game that's developed by Harmonix, and published by MTV, and distributed by EA.

"So as far as I can tell, their biggest contribution to it really is just shipping these 20-pound boxes," he continued. "They're not developing, they're not publishing, so they don't have any of those rights. So calling it an EA title, I've always felt, was kind of misleading. In North America, the most famous title distributed through EA partners was Final Fantasy, and you wouldn't call Final Fantasy an EA title. Everyone assumes it's us against EA, but in my estimation it's misleading."

Elsewhere, Huang pondered on what Rock Band’s (currently unconfirmed) price tag could mean for the game. "[With Rock Band] they are setting some very interesting precedents," he told GameSpot. "I think the biggest thing for me is this price of $200 we hearing floating around for the ensemble. That's with a wired guitar and if you want a wireless guitar, the price floating around is another $80 dollars on top of that.

"If they went above $200, and possibly to $280, at $280, you're approaching the price of the Wii console, at least in North America," he continued. "Those kinds of price points will be very, very interesting to watch. If the PS3 launch proved anything, it's that in my opinion price does matter to video game consumers. It'll be interesting to see how much consumer acceptance it has, especially for something billed as a casual game, which will be $300 US dollars, or $280. [That] seems to be awfully high for a casual game, but we'll see."

You can read the rest of the interview here; it’s definitely worth a look if you’re as excited as we are for both Rock Band and the third Guitar Hero game.