Rock Band DLC priced! Cheaper than Guitar Hero's, more choice

by Dan Dormer on Nov 14th 2007 10:24PM

Y'know what? Usage of Robin's "Holy (noun), Batman!" catch phrase often marks any given blog post as pedestrian but ... what the hell. Holy Rock Band downloadable content prices, Batman! We visited Harmonix earlier today, but "mum" was the word regarding DLC pricing, but now we know why ... because they love GameSpot a little bit more than us.

Harmonix revealed that instead of charging 500 Microsoft Points ($6.25) for a three song pack as Activision does with Guitar Hero III, they would be releasing the packs for 440 Microsoft Points ($5.49) with -- and here's the kicker -- the option to download individual songs without purchasing the entire pack. Single track pricing starts as low as 80 Microsoft Points ($0.99) and can go as high as 240 Microsoft Points ($2.99), but the "vast majority" will be priced at 159 Microsoft Points ($1.99).

Some of the standout singles planned for release include Weezer's "Buddy Holly," The Clash's "I Fought The Law," and Radiohead's "My Iron Lung." For a full breakdown of the first five weeks of planned DLC for Rock Band, hit the break. Commence dancing in the streets elsewhere (or in the comments).

Week of November 20, 2007: (*--asterisk denotes a cover version)
Metallica Pack
"Ride the Lightning"
"Blackened"
"And Justice for All"

The Police Pack
"Can't Stand Losing You"
"Synchronicity II"
"Roxanne"

Queens of the Stone Age Pack
"3's and 7's"
"Little Sister"
"Sick Sick Sick"

Individual Tracks
"Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (Cover)
"Juke Box Hero" by Foreigner (Cover)
"Bang a Gong (Get It On)" by T-Rex (Cover)
"My Sharona" by The Knack (Cover)
"Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways (Cover)
"Joker & The Thief"--Wolfmother

Week of November 27, 2007
David Bowie Pack
"Moonage Daydream"
"Heroes" (Cover)
"Queen Bitch" (Cover)

Week of December 4, 2007
Black Sabbath Pack (Covers)
"N.I.B."
"Sweet Leaf"
"War Pigs"

Week of December 11, 2007
Punk Pack
"Rockaway Beach" by The Ramones
"I Fought the Law" by The Clash
"Ever Fallen In Love" by Buzzcocks (Cover)

Week of December 18, 2007
Individual Tracks
"My Iron Lung" by Radiohead
"Buddy Holly" by Weezer
"Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders (Cover)

Source

Tags: BreakingNews, dlc, EA, Electronic-Arts, Harmonix, MTV, PS3, Rock-Band, RockBand, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (88)

maybe this will will get guitar hero to lower there prices.

so I pay 170 so i can buy more? GHIII is fine for me, would i love better priced single songs and more of em? yeah, is it a huge factor FOR ME not really

"so I pay 170"

Buy the game standalone and tape "Guitar Hero 4" on the box.

I was hoping for a slight bit cheaper, but I'm cool enough with this. The options make up for it as well as the fact that considering that each song has to accommodate more than one instrument.

I kind of don't like the idea of buying certain songs (or packs or whatever) at 159 points though. I wish they'd round up or to something a little more sensible. Since you can't do anything with a single point, y'know? Even packs at 440 points are annoying. If they went for 400, I'd be sold with no questions asked.

But I'm just nitpicking. Cheaper is good. Much better in fact.

I agree. Part of the reason I will never buy gamer pics (aside from the obvious fact that you're paying money for a jpg) is because they cost like, 60 or 80 points. So far as I know, everything else on the marketplace is in 100 point increments. This is going to be really obnoxious having 1 extra point just floating around and doing nothing. Unless you buy 100 songs for 159 points.

And MS loves it when you end up with odd numbers of points, because they make money off of all of those little bits people can't use. That is the scam that all of these console's stores run, very annoying. Kind of like when the government raises postage rates or creates new currency.

It's ok, we still love you guys.

Please, oy. Give us J-Rock and J-Pop for Haruhi's(a goddess) sake! I wanna jam out to "God Knows..." the end -all rock ballad! PPPPPPPPPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ Harmonix!

No.

Double no.

@ Sedeas: Yes. Now go back to listening to dying mongoose anal sounds, oy.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pop+music
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jpop
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=j-rock

Zing! Ni-paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~, Fox News-/Murdoch- loving[assumedly] biznatch!

Same for you, werbal, oy!
I'm going to 4chan, oy.

God if you have any sympathy for humans, do NOT put in J-Rock in any music-rhythm game. EVER.

stay on 4chan

Hashbrown- that's kinda how these music games got started. Y'know, Bemani and all. Besides, with this heavy count of DLC, the idea is to appeal to niche audiences. Imagine a geek rock pack, or an unsigned pack, or a J-Rock pack. Even with these prices, it'd be crazy to expect someone to own every single song.

Over time, your Rock Band band is going to fall into a certain genre based on what stuff you download. If tye wants a Japanese-style band, weeaboo as it may be, he could.

You know, some of us actually listen to music from all over the world. I can listen to music in English and still listen to music from Japan. This would be a big deal to me if they got some of my favourites (Gackt, the GazettE, Dir en grey ...).

You know, as much as I want to say Japanese Rock Music could never fit on a Rock Band game..... Mad Capsule Markets is a very heavy thrash lovefest. Of course since I'm also currently loving the Beck anime series, some love there would rock too. What a wonderful promotion. The Mongolian Chop Squad Pack...

World Falling Down- Dying Breed
Hit In America- Beat Crusaders
Typhoon 24- Beck

Dir En Grey's Child Prey and I'll definitely buy RB.

Dude, JRock could totally fit the bill for this. Listen to The Pillows (all over the FLCL soundtrack). They rock pretty damn well IMO.

Yes! The Pillows are awesome. I love FLCL, it's one out of two animes I could ever get into (the other being Lupin the 3rd).

Well what would you rather advocate for... shit like Mudvayne and Godsmack? Or worse... US pop. If you don't like JRock, then you have a very LIMITED taste in music. Who says you have to be embarrased to like such a thing?

THIS is the face(s) of J-Rock!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avm7x0zj6nE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVf5_ack--g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laWzZlJAR1k

Now if you don't watch these(at LEAST), you can be considered by sophisticated dudes to be a brainless US Pop lover, oy. MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

tyetheczar, if you want some credibility try not to put anime openings. If these songs are any good, they can stand out on their own. Haruhi is awesome, but I can't forgive you for linking to Naruto and FullMetal Alchemist. Hell, if "Ready, Steady, Go" has it's own music video on YouTube, you can find something like that for the other songs.

Then again, I just really hate that emo blond haired midget who happens to have the same name as me.

As for those, it's the best I could find to show off the tunes, oy. And if NOT Rock Band, then maybe GHIII as DLC! Plus: Haruhi as a Playable character! People who put off J-Rock and Jpop as crap probably never compared it to video game music as they are significantly similar composition-wise(it's all about the Melodies, baby.). Seriously. Do you all HAVE to be embarassed about playing a song just because it has a kiddie/"girly" mood in it? Or would you rather have Britney Spears, Pussycat Dolls, or Mariah Carey(compared to Michael Jackson & Whitney Houston, god-awful) in your Rock Band arsenal? Just a thought...

Only 3 comments so far? I guess for the next few hours, nobody has a reason to totally hate EA.

Don't worry, they'll do something soon, right?

EA has nothing to do with DLC. They're mearly distributors for the retail game (and I read they helped with some of the QA, but I just think they wanted to play the game).

those prices don't "blow my socks off" like that guy promised

Competition is always good. Activision is probably going to make the next batch of Guitar Hero DLC cheaper to combat this, so in the end everybody wins.

Only bad news is that Juke Box Hero is a cover. Tragic loss there.

if the dlc worked for both games, then i would definetely expect activision to make their gh3 dlc cheaper or at least the same price as rock band, but they're exclusive, so I doubt the prices will change anytime soon

also what's with all the friggin covers? they always sound lame

Actually, move of the covers sound pretty damned awesome. And someone will likely be singing most of the time while you're playing (if you're playing the band game how it was designed) anyway, so the cover singer shouldn't matter.

The cover songs are all from late 60s to very early 80s. They're covers because the masters don't exist or they're not usable for the game.

a couple of rock band songs are covers while gh3 got the masters...

What's your point? A couple of Rock Band songs are masters where GH3 got the covers. Songs can be mixed differently, and Guitar Hero only requires the string instruments to be pulled out. Rock Band requires the drum track to be split up completely so it can't use ANY masters where the drums were mixed down. There's a steeper requirement for master to be usable for Rock Band than for Guitar Hero.

...wait a second. 240 Microsoft Points is not $2.49. It's three bucks.

Please tell me the typo was in the 240, and songs aren't going up to three dollars.

Still too expensive. The songs should all be sold for $1 individually or $5 for 6.

that's what i was thinking too

In this fantasy world do you also get free Xboxs to play the game with? Maybe hand delivered by God himself?

that'd be nice

and we could also sue microsoft for eleventy billion dollars for overdraft fees too! because, yaknow, we're total unreasonable douchebags

1 Dollar individually is not Unreasonable (they said some singles would be 1 dollar). And since you're buying a pack of six, its also reasonable to assume you could get a slight discount. Buy 5 get 1 free isn't unreasonable either.

Now I agree it isn't likely, but its not unreasonable.

I would care, but it's too bad Rock Band is $170 for the entrance fee.

Or, you know, you could buy the standalone game if you've already got a guitar.

we don't already have the drums tho

seriously, for $2 you're buying 16 versions of it. That's a good deal no matter how you cut it.

I'd be more than happy at 2 dollars if it also came with the ability to move the song to my PC for playback.

Well, really, it's more like 13 -- four tracks per Guitar/Bass/Drums, and one singing track. The four difficulties in singing just basically mean you have to be within a tighter acceptable range of accuracy, it's not really different pitches or anything.

But still - $2 is a great price point. It's cheaper than Guitar Hero's DLC, while providing more content. $2 is perfect. Getting price breaks when buying packs? Even better.

Jesus just steal it for your pc, go to mininova and steal the whole album.

I'd pay more than that if they would release some Rodrigo y Gabriela tracks. That would be incredible. Sin Documentos for GH2 was a good start at getting some classical guitar into the mix, since that style of music is so fun to play.

Except those are guitar only, would be kinda pointless on rock band.

I choose to believe the lack of any tracks off Master of Puppets in the Metallica pack means that it will be a full album release. Oh, please... gods of rock... grant me this wish!

When is the first full album available, I wonder.

Well, the Metallica tracks that are coming aren't bad at all. And Justice for All is my favorite Metallica song, and the other two are pretty good. Ride the Lightning should be really fun for guitar.

but how do you have bass for two songs off And Justice for All when the original CD had none? =P

it's probably rhythm guitar

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Rock Band DLC priced! Cheaper than Guitar Hero's, more choice

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