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)

Speaking of which, And Justice for All is a pretty long song. Should be a good workout. Are there any songs that are longer in either Rock Band or the GH series? (Justice is 9:42)

GH3 has "Through the Fire and Flames", I think its like a 10 minute song.

I needs me some Dream Theater for Rock Band.

TTFaF is a hair under eight minutes or something. Rock Band has Foreplay/Long Time and Green Grass & High Tides that both clock in at just shy of ten minutes I believe. Right around the length of And Justice For All. Plus, GH2 had Freebird.

Dream Theater...yessss...

totally off topic but*

How does the online on PS3 work? Does it use something similar to friend codes or similar to 360? Or is it totally different? Or is there no way to have online friendlists? i have no idea since i dont have it.

*just wondering*

You have a friends list and you can hook up and play with anyone on there. And I'm assuming that you can just pick up and play with anyone who is online at the time.

Oh christ....

I'm gonna be so broke.

PS3 users connect by thier profile/user ID that is set within the console itself.

kudos to EA for actually listening to the fans who wanted cheaper DLC. they realized they are better off this way in the long run because gamers will buy MORE of it if it's cheaper. imagine that.

Rock Band has better DLC, but GH3 definitely has better built in content.

I still don't get the debate over the two. It's not like it's Skate vs Tony Hawk, where they are both on equal footing. The gap in price point is HUGE. It's good that the GH series now has some competition to help motivate it, but I think Rock Band is going to fall very, very short of its hype.

No it's not. This I feel completely confident in saying. The addition of drums is completely brilliant and alone makes Rock Band surpass GH3. The ability to have 4 people playing at once... you really feel like you're a band playing music.

if you have 3 other people with you

you can't do career mode online last i heard, same as with gh3, and it sucks for both

Gib, people said the same things about Steel Battalion, that it was so much more realistic due to the massive, $200, controller. Do you know anyone who has it?

I'm not saying one is a better game than the other, just that the buy in price for the "full" Rock Band experience, which at the moment is the only way to purchase it, is going to cause it to have far lower sales to really be considered competition to GH.

I don't see how you can say it has better 'built-in content'. So GH3 has GH2 + battle mode + MOAR METAL, and Rock Band has GH2 + involved career mode + more instruments + MOAR GENRES. Sure, you might get more bang for your buck (debatable), but I don't see it having better built-in content unless you cosnider metal songs and generally poor note charts (there are some really good ones too) better. GH3 has been a bit of a disappointment for me.

Kyera, better built in content as in a better default song list, which is pretty well agreed upon. And yes, metal in a GUITAR game is a good thing. I'd love a metal themed GH.

What also bothers me is that it obviously takes a longer time to create a song for RB than it does for GH, because of all the other instruments. So this extensive DLC must have been worked on for a decent while, yet the game isn't even out yet. This begs the question, why the hell didn't it make it into the game proper? Putting off content at the later stages of development because you know you can just send it out later as DLC and get even more money for it is a terrible trend, imho.

Joop gets the internet slap for demanding that these songs be in the release mode.

And it probably takes a team of 3 people 3 days to convert a song with master tracks into RB songs. If that long. And I bet money that they've got more than 3 people doing the work.

Crono, I didn't demand that they be put in the release, I questioned the decision of saving content that's obviously complete for launch day DLC as a way to increase income from the game. It's effectively saying that they could have made the game better but they opted to force you to pay for that extra quality. That's a disturbing trend, but I suppose you can't expect much more from EA.

Thank you Blu Ray association, for paying for my Rock Band. Those 5 free Blu Ray movies you sent me for buying a PS3? Returned them at Best buy for a $160 gift card which will go directly to the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. :D

nice

i think you can get 5 free hddvd movies if you buy the addon. but selling them back would just put you back at 0

How do you return them to a store you didn't buy them at without a receipt?

This is great pricing, no matter how you slice it. The iTunes argument ($0.99 cents per song) doesn't work when you consider that all Apple has to do is slap a file of an audio recording on a server and let the cash trickle in. They've got to do a hell of a lot more to get these tracks made. Honestly, $1.99 was what I was expecting they'd go for for most licenced music if they wanted to come in at a fairly perfect price point. I expect we'll see $0.99 for indie bands and the like, and $2.99 for really hard to get crap (like, perhaps, Led Zeppelin or The Beatles). I don't think they could price it any cheaper without shooting themselves in the foot, and if I see another idiot talking about how they should have just included these songs on the disc since they're already done I'll find some way to reach through the internet and slap them for being so stupid.

Can't wait for "My Iron Lung" and "Buddy Holly" on the same day. Asking for MS points for Christmas for sure.

Can someone erase the comment with my name above this thanks.

Grateful Dead pack not dated yet?

Yea, seriously. I felt like I was the only person looking forward to this. After seeing Phil and Friends at the Nokia Theatre on Saturday though, I hope they can put a song that's not from a studio album into the 18 songs.

Considering that you not only get a guitar section, but a drums, vocals and full band play I'd say these are a way better deal than Guitar Hero. Considering what you get here, you'd be paying 4 times as much for the GH3 songs.

Wait a minute, First we get Don't Fear the Reaper and then we get Little Sister? Do i need to remind anyone of the second coming of Gene Frenkle?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnNFHEDxwZY

Awesome.

I'm actually pretty impressed with this. This is what the GH II content should have cost back when it was going to have "more downloadable content than any other XBOX 360 game." (They will forever have to eat those words.) One can only hope that Activision will follow in Harmonix's footsteps.

They better be saving all the Puppets tracks for the full album.

Goodness, that's sweet!

*just hoping one of the 240 MS points songs is not Joker & the Thief*

Great Metallica songs! Holy crap I can't wait to play those. The drums are gonna rock so much on all three of those. Where's Dyer's Eve for drums? :)

Honestly, $3 for a single song is not that bad-- especially considering that's the high end. That's 99 cents for the song, basically, then $2 for the people who rockbanded-it. And also, Rock Band tracks offer a lot more gameplay than guitar hero tracks. You buy one song, you have something to master on drums, guitar, vocals, and, sorta, bass.

Didn't really get to my point: Rock Band DLC has every right to cost more than GH III DLC. This really is a lot more of a kindness than the slightly lower price seems. Activision means business.

RE: Metallica songs.

HELL YEAH!!!

Metallica Pack
"Ride the Lightning"
"Blackened"
"And Justice for All"

OMFG!!! My inner 12 year old is ready to rock!

I believe in staying with the original versions of a series as opposed to moving to mindless knockoffs that add half-assed features and try to play it off like they created the whole thing. Which means in this case I am buying Rock Band... no really, it is the real Guitar Hero III. Harmonix has yet to wrong any of us, Neversoft took my $60 for Gun 360.

Now that's more like it!

I can't wait. =)

How in the world are you going to be able to drum Metallica w/out 2 kick drums. People are going to end up hurting themselves.

Previous 50 Comments

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

Reader Comments (88)

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