Joystiq

According to Red Octane COO Charles Huang "multiple territories ... will not see Rock Band this Christmas." Now remember, Red Octane makes Guitar Hero and is the competitor to the Harmonix developed, EA published, Rock Band. Huang believes Australia and New Zealand are out this year and expects those territories to pay $275 Australian for the game and peripherals. Speaking with Gamespot AU, he says possible release delays can be attributed to peripheral manufacturing output and that this could reach beyond the Asia-Pacific region. Huang says, "I'm not singling out Australia -- probably it will be multiple territories that will not see Rock Band this Christmas is my guess." EA Australia won't confirm the information, but GameSpot UK was told by their EA rep, "We don't think [Rock Band] will be released in Q4."

EA confirmed with Joystiq that Rock Band is still coming to the US in 2007. Although there is still no announced release date, no confirmed peripheral price, and we've heard hardly a peep about the game from the corporate side since the good buzz generated by E3. And we know we were working with "prototype" peripherals that hadn't gone into mass production at E3. We've asked for comment from EA about what's going on with the game and its peripherals. We'll update as soon as we hear back.

Update: EA got back to us and said that "everything is on track to launch the game on time" in the US. They'd also like to clarify that no European or Australian ship dates were ever announced and "at this point everything else is pure speculation." They won't answer specific questions regarding US peripheral supplies, we asked if they can guarantee at least a guitar for every copy of the game, but they do say that they're "working as hard as [they] can to produce as many copies of the game as quickly as [they] can." And finally, in terms of a release date, "We're almost there! Rock Band will ship this holiday in North America for the PS3 and Xbox 360."