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Rock Band Stage Kit compatibility not being patched into The Beatles: Rock Band
Owners of the Rock Band Stage Kit must accept that the device will not be compatible with The Beatles: Rock Band. Harmonix has confirmed to Joystiq that there are "no plans to patch it for The Beatles: Rock Band." As to whether the device will be compatible with future editions of Rock Band, a company rep stated, "We haven't announced any future titles at this time."There's been some back and forth on the Rock Band forums about whether the smoke machine and disco ball-ish device -- originally $100 (but cheaper now) -- would be patched into The Beatles game. We hope this settles it -- not that you have a choice, apparently.[Thanks, Jeremy F]
Conan isn't the world's best Beatles: Rock Band bassist
On the eve of the launch of Harmonix's digital British invasion, Conan O'Brien had a very special guest on his show -- Dhani Harrison, a collaborator on The Beatles: Rock Band and son of the late, great George Harrison. He spoke with everyone's favorite ginger giant, then demoed the title with Conan, who struggled on the bass line for "Birthday." Sadly, it looked as though he was playing on Easy. Actually, it looked even easier than that. Does Beatles: Rock Band have a "Toddler" setting?You can check out NBC's site for a video of the interview and "Birthday" sampling. As for the Cone, we suggest he stay off the gee-tars and stick with his Edith Bunker-inspired vocal work.
Night Elf in Guitar Hero 5
This is one of the many reasons why I really enjoy this job: one day, you're talking turkey with a psychologist who's dealing with serious addiction issues, and the next, you're writing about Night Elves in Guitar Hero 5. Personally, I prefer Harmonix's new Beatles game, but there's no denying that the character customization system in our very own Activision-Blizzard's Guitar Hero 5 is extremely complex. So much so that Artair on Doomhammer was actually able to make a pretty respectable-looking Night Elf male with the system.Which really just makes it much more ridiculous that this thing could be playing onstage with none other than Kurt Cobain. But we'll let that one go -- if you've found a way to get any other Warcraft characters jamming in Guitar Hero (or any other game with an in-depth character creator), be sure to send us a tip and some pics.
The Beatles: Rock Band DLC to include original dreamscapes
If you plow halfway through The Beatles: Rock Band today, you'll notice that all the songs taking place in a studio setting (as opposed to The Ed Sullivan Show or Shea Stadium, for example) feature really lovely animations, which Harmonix calls "dreamscapes," inspired by the song they accompany. The developer tells us that the DLC albums arriving in the coming months will receive similar treatment. "DLC songs which don't end up in historical venues will have custom dreamscapes, yes," said Dare Matheson Lead Artist on the game at Harmonix. "There will be visual themes and elements that will stretch from the on-disc dreamscapes into the DLC dreamscapes, but everyone is custom, unique, and fully-crafted for the song it will accompany. It's a bargain!" At the same $2-per-song price as regular 'ol Rock Band DLC, we can't help but agree.
PAX 2009 interview: The Beatles: Rock Band lead designer Chris Foster
The Beatles: Rock Band drops today, along with the band's remastered albums availability on iTunes (?) and a flood of Beatles: Rock Band news. Fans will be wailing on plastic instruments all day in an effort to travel back in time and live out their fantasies of becoming musical legends. We caught up with lead designer Chris Foster at PAX, who gave up some secrets about the game (including the scrapped "forever" mode). Read on for the full interview.%Gallery-68343%
Reminder: The Beatles: Rock Band DLC already available
If you're picking up The Beatles: Rock Band today (which you really should) and you're getting it on Xbox 360, we've got a quick reminder that the first DLC for the game is already available for 160 ($2). If you'll recall, Microsoft announced "All You Need is Love" to be an Xbox 360-exclusive track at its E3 keynote. Better yet, by buying the song, you're going to be contributing to Doctors Without Borders, which sends physicians and other medical personnel into impoverished countries. Although, doctors, isn't it just a tad irresponsible leaving the country in the middle of the PAXPOXalypse? Oh, and if you're unfamiliar with the song, we've taken the liberty of embedding it after the break.
Money can buy you a custom Beatles: Rock Band Xbox 360
You have two options for getting your hands on one of these custom-designed Beatles: Rock Band Xbox 360 consoles. You can either offer the winning bid on the unit being auctioned by Microsoft -- which has a current high bid of $680, with almost ten days to go -- or you can purchase the 360-exclusive downloadable version of "All You Need is Love" and be automatically entered into a drawing to win one. Of course, the costlier eBay method has better odds!Whichever method you use, all of the proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. That makes you a hero for trying to win a prize or playing a song in a video game!%Gallery-72190%
Guitar Hero: The Beatles sends us into a terrifying alternate universe
Have you ever wondered why single-band Guitar Hero games meet with a chorus of groans, but when Rock Band does it, it's assumed to be the best thing ever? This video depicting a fictional Guitar Hero: The Beatles captures it perfectly. We don't even want to explain the joke(s) -- experience the train wreck in real time after the break.The Guitar Hero: Whoever series reached its ridiculous extreme with the recent announcement that the Van Halen game would be given away as a freebie with Guitar Hero 5. While we appreciate it as a deal, it shows just how much even Activision thinks of it.[Thanks, Jeff]
How Metallica helped sell Paul McCartney on The Beatles: Rock Band
If you come down with a chronic case of Beatlemania on Sept. 9, you could have someone unlikely to thank for it: Metallica. Speaking with The Guardian, Paul McCartney describes how Harmonix first started pitching him on the product way back in 2007, using Metallica (presumably one of the band's songs running in an earlier Guitar Hero title) as an example of what could be done with The Beatles: Rock Band. There were "a couple of grown-ups standing looking very foolish with these little plastic guitars playing to a screen", McCartney says. "And we're going, 'Yeah, all right... It just looks like a really bad band.' They said: 'We really can do a great one with the Beatles, and we'll show you.' So Ringo and I got a bit intrigued." So, when McCartney says they looked like a really bad band ... is he talking about the people playing or the guys on the screen? Because, yes.
Review: The Beatles: Rock Band
In a real sense, debating the "fun" of The Beatles: Rock Band is a worthless exercise. As with other Rock Band games, how much fun you're having is directly proportionate to how much you enjoy the songs, and though you're absolutely entitled not to like The Beatles, it's pretty clear at this point in history that you'd be in the minority. So, you'll find me talking largely in terms of presentation for this review, since (a) that's really the meat of what you're buying here and (b) it's absolutely, jaw-droppingly, top-to-bottom stunning. %Gallery-68343%
PSA: Beatles: Rock Band 'Special Value Edition' isn't such a special value
In addition to the fancy Premium Bundle of The Beatles: Rock Band, which features the new Beatles replica instruments, the game is available in a "Special Value Edition" for those unwilling or unable to drop $250 for a single game. The bundle contains the game and some regular Rock Band instruments for $160 -- a price that is cut by $20 on Amazon. MTV confirmed to us that the instruments included with the bundle are those from Rock Band 1. Here's the thing about this bundle: despite the fact that it says "special value" on the box, it's not the best value on a Beatles: Rock Band set you can get. If you want the superior Rock Band 2 instruments, you can get the RB2 bundle right now for $100. Purchase a separate Beatles disc, and you've got two games and one set of (nice) instruments for the same $160. If you don't care which instruments you get, and you're planning to buy on 360 or PS3, you can go even cheaper and grab the $79 Rock Band/Rock Band 2 game pack, which includes the Rock Band 1 instruments and Rock Band 1 and 2. Throw a $60 Beatles in and you have three Rock Band games for the price of one Special Value bundle. Of course, this information is mostly valuable for people planning ahead. The real place of the Special Value Edition is in stores, as a single box that makes an attractive impulse purchase.
Harmonix founders detail the company's failure-ridden road to success
Believe it or not, things weren't always going so well for Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchise developers Harmonix. Starting out in 1995 as a "music tech" company, founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy took four years of "misstarts and product concepts that never made it anywhere" before they had any success. Talking to CNN Money, the two detail five years of strange, misguided, or ill-informed ideas that eventually somehow lead to The Beatles: Rock Band.First up: "The Axe," something that Rigopulos describes as "a joystick music improvisation system." In so many words, you moved the joystick around and various sounds were produced. Unsurprisingly, only 300 were sold -- "a horrendous failure that led to a painful lesson," Rigopulos says. "You can't really build a business on an entertainment experience that only keeps people entertained for 15 minutes." Second, the two tried breaking into the (at the time) $10 billion Japanese karaoke market ... and met with resounding failure once again. Luckily for us, lessons learned overseas came back with the duo and Harmonix became a game company. Rigopulos and Egozy quickly changed their company's focus from "music tech" to "gaming," creating Frequency and Amplitude soon after. Though the games didn't directly lead to the financial success achieved later with Guitar Hero and Rock Band (GH didn't get off the ground until RedOctane approached Harmonix in the early oughts), both helped the now major developer to get a foot in the door.
Rumor: 45th track in Beatles: Rock Band is 'The End'
We can just picture it: Harmonix employees collectively having a laugh at our expense as the forty-fifth (and final) track featured in The Beatles: Rock Band is announced to be ... wait for it ... "The End." The image you see above certainly makes this possibility seem all the more real, as the Abbey Road track isn't listed anywhere on the nearly complete track list we've had for some time now. Apparently, the game has already landed in a few lucky forum-goers hands over at ScoreHero, who quickly revealed the alleged final track. Also revealed: The game's a lot of fun. Shocking! All kidding aside, though, we're fairly confident "The End" made it into the game as track number 45, but we'll have to wait and see with our own eyes when The Beatles: Rock Band launches next week.
Harmonix to 're-energize' its franchises after The Beatles: Rock Band
Sure, The Beatles: Rock Band developer Harmonix has been busy working on next week's big release for some time now, but did you know it's also working on "re-energizing" its "core franchises?" Harmonix PR overlord John Drake told CVG as much, saying that while the studio is ready to refocus on its existing portfolio, it's been busy making sure it got The Beatles game 100 percent right. "We were terrified while making the game, hoping we don't make [Apple Corps] mad at any point -- they're really nice and easy to work with, but this is The Beatles, you can't afford to mess this up." Considering the longtime rhythm game developer more or less re-energized its Amplitude and Frequency franchises with Rock Band Unplugged, we're taking a wild stab in the dark here when we suggest Drake's likely talking about Rock Band 3. And does "re-energizing" in this case mean "adding Project Natal functionality?" We're not sure yet, but we've got our fingers as uncrossed as possible, just in case.
Net a free Avatar shirt with the purchase of The Beatles: Rock Band
Specially marked boxes of the upcoming music title The Beatles: Rock Band include a unique bonus: an exclusive Avatar shirt. The freebie marks the first (and hopefully not the last) time Avatar apparel has been given away alongside the launch of a game, giving extra incentive for users to pick up a copy of the Xbox 360 version. Coincidentally, it'll make for a hilarious image when your Avatar shows up in Guitar Hero 5 donning a Rock Band promo t-shirt -- if Avatar apparel is able to show up in game, that is. Of course, this news only matters if your Avatar's dress code includes wearing band logo shirts. Our Avatar dress code allows only suit and tie, because we're gentlemen. Make sure to check out Major Nelson's Flickr page for details on how to spot the free bonus at retail.
MTV spent big for The Beatles, slowly backing away from peripheral business
It appears that Viacom, parent company of MTV Games and Harmonix, guaranteed a minimum of $10 million, along with another potential $40 million in royalties, to its respective estates for the use of The Beatles in the upcoming Rock Band game. Sources familiar with the deal tell The LA Times that the "royalty rates on [the deal] are not even comparable to anything that has been done before." All this cash is being thrown around in the midst of a revenue decline in the rhythm genre.MTV Games is seemingly taking even more steps away from producing and distributing peripherals. Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president at the company, explains that its "core competency is media" -- he'd rather let Activision "take on the burden of getting those super-tight margin instruments out there."
The Beatles: Rock Band visits Abbey Road
In a 30-second clip that we're not exactly sure came from this decade, MTV Games/Harmonix preview upcoming music/rhythm game The Beatles: Rock Band by way of a big party on Abbey Road. No, we don't mean the street itself, we mean that the enormously famous album cover got turned into a big ol' 30-second party in celebration of the upcoming game. Other than a somewhat creepy faux John Lennon around the halfway mark, this commercial provides yet another reason to be more excited than ever for the day that the Dreamcast turns 10.%Gallery-68343%[Via Kotaku]
EEDAR: Guitar Hero 5 will outsell The Beatles: Rock Band by nearly 2-to-1
EEDAR analyst Jessie Divnich has been quoted in a newly-published Bloomberg article, stating that the research group sees The Beatles: Rock Band facing a tough fight against the latest Guitar Hero in a genre that has, as he believes, "peaked." We got in touch with Divnich to talk about his assertion in the same article that Guitar Hero 5 will likely outsell Harmonix's Beatles game this year by a ratio of nearly two-to-one.Divnich says he expects Activison to ring up sales in the order of 3 million GH5 units across all platforms, compared to a projected 1.7 million for The Beatles: Rock Band. "I believe that at the end of the day, it comes down to marketing muscle, and Activision has proven in numerous showdowns that they can out advertise and out promote their competitor," he tells Joystiq. "If Activision relaxes on the marketing spend, while MTV Games kicks it up a notch, there's certainly a chance that I could be wrong."There's another scenario in which this year's Rock Band could prove more of a contender. "The only concern I have with my Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band analysis is that Activision may focus less on marketing Guitar Hero 5 and divert funding to DJ Hero, a new brand in their Guitar Hero line-up," EEDAR's chief number man admits. "That would certainly change the game."No matter what, Divnich doesn't see a very-worst-case scenario playing out for MTV Games and Harmonix, assuring us that "[The Beatles: Rock Band] will outsell Rock Band 2 this holiday season."
Get your hands on The Beatles: Rock Band today at Best Buy
Sure, you could sit on your butt today, thinking about how The Beatles: Rock Band won't be available until September 9. Instead, why not head to a participating Best Buy store today between noon and 3:30PM (EST) to check out the game early? Harmonix and MTV Games are offering a chance to play an in-store demo build of the game for today only before it hits retailers in a few weeks. There's even "special hosted demo events" at certain stores "where you can ask questions about the game, learn some tips-and-tricks, and more" -- we're hoping the "and more" is sensual massages from Sir Paul McCartney himself. Peep the whole list of participating stores right here.[Thanks, JD!]
Rock Band DLC to hit 1000 tracks by holiday with help of Queen, Nirvana & Elton John
Aside from announcing the first three Beatles albums to be released as DLC for upcoming tear-jerker The Beatles: Rock Band, MTV Games and Harmonix today revealed intentions to bring the Rock Band DLC count to 1,000 songs by this holiday. At the current rate Harmonix is releasing songs for the franchise -- without factoring in the Rock Band Network -- that's roughly 500 songs per year.Additionally, the companies have revealed a number of the artists that will be contributing to the holiday goal, including Queen, Nirvana, Tom Petty, Elton John, Iggy Pop, The White Stripes, Pantera, Talking Heads, Korn, and The Raconteurs, as well as the ever elusive "and more." You can always find out what new tracks are coming to Rock Band as DLC (and what's on the way) by using our Rock Band Weekly feature.%Gallery-27156%
