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CES 2009: Harmonix interested in music and RB track combo sales
Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos mentioned at CES that he thinks it makes sense to offer up digital versions of songs with Rock Band tracks in a single offering. Ars Technica was there when Rigopulos expressed that it's something the company is interested in, but the CEO didn't expound exactly how it might happen.Considering Harmonix is owned by MTV, it's not really a stretch to see how partnerships could be made for such a combo deal to happen, but Rigopulos does believe it would "change the tenor" of the developer's relationship with record labels. As long as Rock Band tracks continue being about $2 and the digital songs cost an extra buck (if you want to purchase it), the whole thing sounds like a reasonable deal.
GameDaily 'Persons of the Year': #1 - 3 and readers' choice
GameDaily concluded its "Persons of the Year" feature today by announcing Nintendo America's COO Reggie Fils-Aime took the top spot; Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb took the readers' choice award. Fils-Aime bested Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (#2) and Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos (#3) because of the Wii's phenomenal success in the States. GameDaily had previously announced #4 and #5, which went to Aaron Greenberg and Jeff Gerstmann respectively.Major Nelson -- guru of Xbox -- received the readers' choice award after politely directing his loyal readership to GameDaily's website. Before Major Nelson stepped up his campaign, Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond was in the lead. Too bad Raymond didn't win though, GameDaily ended up having "Men of the Year" awards rather than "Persons of the Year."Read -- 2007 Persons of the Year #1Read -- Persons of the Year: Readers' Choice Unveiled
Harmonix looks beyond Rock Band
Not attempting to become Behind the Music fodder two months after their incoming success, Harmonix is already looking forward to life after Rock Band and keeping their eyes on the prize. Speaking with Next-Gen, Studio Lead Alex Rigopulos says they want to expand the music genre, noting that there are "other instruments that we haven't touched yet" (like cowbell) and more music genres to explore. Harmonix is also playing around with allowing players to make their own music, with Rigopulos labeling his games as "performance simulations." The developer is currently considering "freestyle and creative elements" for future titles.On a related note, he doesn't consider the $170 price tag expensive if you think of Rock Band as a platform with longevity. According to Rigopulos, the game itself will be available separately at launch, allowing people to pool their money with friends for the bundle (remember, this holiday there is only the bundle) and exchanging instruments to play solo. The man also discounts those whining about fake instruments -- apparently, Harmonix has heard anecdotes about games like Guitar Hero inspiring people to get real guitar lessons. All we know is that it's only a matter of time before an actual Real Guitar Hero gets made. Sure, it'd be expensive, but the potential is clearly there -- for profit.
Harmonix CEO talks about E3 award
We hope that Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, was happy when Joystiq gave Rock Band the Best in Show Award for E3, but just in case he wasn't, the Game Critics Awards also gave them the same award just to make sure. Rigopulos recently spoke to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal about their Game Critics award saying that they took a break from beta to polish off "several crates of champagne."With all the delays lately, it's good to know that Rock Band is still on track for its holiday release. Rigopulos says all the major stuff is out of the way and they're just bug-fixing and polishing the game. He also believes that the music game genre has "finally arrived" and become a major mainstream category in games. Now we're just waiting to see if the mass produced versions of Harmonix's new guitar, mic and drum hardware (the prototypes at E3 worked well) hold up to the quality which Red Octane's guitars have -- ignoring those two weeks in April.%Gallery-3923%
