Rumor: Rock Band 2 to feature all RB1 tracks as free DLC [update]

by James Ransom-Wiley on Jul 8th 2008 2:55PM

Rock Band 2 could provide download access to all of the tracks featured on the original Rock Band disc, according IGN Xbox 360 Editor Nate Ahearn. Responding to comments made by a poster in an IGN Insider "Grudge Match" that pits Rock Band 2 against Guitar Hero World Tour, Ahearn writes, "Immediately upon purchasing Rock Band 2 you'll have the ability to download a huge library of songs, as well as all of the songs off of the original disc as a free download."

Ahearn has apparently (and probably wrongfully) answered a long-standing question about the seamless continuity between the two catalogs; from the RB1 disc to the RB2 disc. Many purchasers of the original Rock Band -- marketed as a "platform" by its developers -- had hoped that as the franchise inevitably spawned, there would be no need to swap discs. Supposedly, the solution lies in downloading the first game's disc tracks onto the hard drive. Still, there are at least two important questions that need answering: (1) Can we pick and choose our RB1 songs, or do we download all of them as one "free download?" (2) Can any RB2 purchaser access RB1 songs for free, or do we need to validate our ownership of the first game? Expect the full reveal next week.

Update: According to IGN Xbox Team Editor-in-Chief Hilary Goldstein, "Nate goofed in writing that. He hopes that is allowed. Nothing about this has been announced and Nate's never even seen RB2. Sorry, guys." Honest mistake ... or covering tracks? We'll know next week. [Source - IGN Boards (registration required)]

[Via GameFAQs Boards]

Source - IGN Insider (registration required)

Tags: dlc, ea, Electronic-Arts, harmonix, mtv-games, PS3, rock-band, rock-band-2, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (59)

Wow, that's amazing. Rock Band FTW.

MY WALLET = REJOICING

What's the point of making a RB2 then? Why not just let everyone with RB1 just download the intended tracks for RB2?

Awesome, I've been thinking about buying RB1 recently. But seeing as how RB2 is so close, I'll just buy it instead.

Because those of us who already dropped 3 digits on RB1 will still have to buy RB2.

I hope we can pick and choose. If so, it's bye-bye Train Kept A-Rollin, Welcome Home, and Mississippi Queen!

Hey, I liked the first 4 or so minutes of welcome home. It's just the ending was so "oh my fucking god please stop already", not to mention my singers usually would have a hissy-fit and stop singing half-way through because "the song is annoying".

Yeah, I'm a singer. See why I hate all of those songs now?

Now if they only left the f-word in Welcome Home, it would be epic.

I dunno, I like Train Kept-A Rollin and Welcome Home, the first being it's based off a blues progression, the second being it's got the Tetris theme. I dunno, I never really got bored of those, singing on expert and not being an actual singer.

This would be amazing but I can't think of any way they could really pull it off without essentially giving them away to everyone, if they decided to be sneaky and borrow a copy.

I think this has been debunked as false anyway, but...I guess I can hope, even if it makes no sense to.

Considering a DVD is usually ~9GB, I don't like this. Unless you have a 100+GB 360 or a PS3, this would be pretty "meh". It's nice to see them supporting their fans and all, but when you think about downloading and storing 50+ tracks worth of content (not to mention all the DLC), it gets to be a little overkill imho.

well the standard HDD for the 360 is about to get upped, and chances are people won't download all of the songs, just the ones they like. Downloading the xbox originals don't make sense if you have a 20GB HDD, but the way the marketplace is set up, you can delete and re-download things whenever you wanr.

Your forgetting though that a lot of the data on the disc was programming so you could play the game. For the DLC you'll probably be looking at 1.5-2.5 GB.

Yeah, those bastards, giving us too much free stuff!

I put every single Rock band Track into Guitar Hero III(PC) with all the songs, most of the DLC, all the separate tracks and all the note charts for each instrument it was a little under 2 gigs of data. So your 100 gigabyte suggestion is a little over the top.

If I remember correctly, a song takes about 50 MB.

50MB x 215(DLC+RB1 roughly) = 10GB 750MB

Maths is wicked!

Except 1Gb isn't the same as 1000Mbs so you would be looking at something like 10,5GB (or 10GB and about an extra 500MB, not 715).

Mathz is indeed wicked :P

Terrible rumor. What about all the people who buy RB2, and then enjoy it and want more? They just lost all of those sales.

This makes no sense from a business standpoint.

I'm sure it will have something to do with your original Rock Band disc. My guess is some kind of a unique ID for each Rock Band game that you can use once to get all the songs.

I don't know about you, but if I buy RB2 and love it. I am not going to rush out and buy the disc for RB1 just for the songs, so really I doubt they would be losing much of anything in terms of sales for RB1.

Plus they can add it as a selling point for RB2, "Includes all original Rock Band songs!" or something stupid like that.

Sure it does. You've got to out do Guitar Hero. Thats the goal, beat them in every aspect. What they are failing at is allowing the use of guitar hero peripherals, if you can use the drums on both games why would you choose the rock band drums that dont work with guitar hero world tour.

The previous game is all sunk cost which were already recovered with the great sales and the downloadable content sales.

I would argue that they are making quite a bulk of their money from those downloads. Thats what they mean by "platform".

"What they are failing at is allowing the use of guitar hero peripherals, if you can use the drums on both games why would you choose the rock band drums that dont work with guitar hero world tour."

I wouldn't say they were failing at that. I mean, maybe from a business standpoint they're "failing", but by allowing the use of the GH peripherals in RB they're doing us consumers a favor. If anything, Activision are the ones failing and screwing us over.

I just hope they fix that damn strum bar. It's way too soft.

YES! YES! LOVING IT!! YES!!!!

This would be great, I hope this happens.

I know that everybody is tossing each other off with joy,but think about how screwed Rock Band 1 owners are.All these money they've spent.

By the way, any chances it'll work with GH3 wireless Les Pauls? I might pick it up.

The first RB does so I would imagine the second one will as well.

I use an Xplorer and Les Paul with RB1

How's the gameplay then? Anything better/worse than Guitar Hero? Something I should know about or get used to?

What "all that money we spent"? All DLC has already been confirmed as compatible, so if this rumor is true and they allow a full free download for all RB1 songs, the most RB1 users have "lost" is $60... All of our instruments still work, and for $60 I'm extremely happy I've had RB since last November.

It's not screwing me over and I've spent far far more than most. You bought one great game and then you buy another great game that lets you pull all the content from the first into it for free. How's that screwing anyone over?

Just goes to show people will find a way to spin shit negative regardless.

I don't get it, how would we be screwed? I'm totally fine with my peripherals, so I just drop $60 and have a new game. Seriously, I'd just hit the ground running, so to speak.

If they do allow you to bring in your RB1 tracks, then it's just icing on the cake.

The only way we'd be screwed is if they make you buy new peripherals and don't allow your DLC to carry over. You know, sort of like Guit... nevermind.

You can use GH guitars with GHIV. When did they say you couldn't? I remember exactly from the IGN press release, that they said your old guitars will work. The new feature (touch frets) does not effect main gameplay. It really only effects the song creator, but the fanboys say it's crap anyway (without even seeing the damn thing in action of course)

But you can't use your existing drums and mic, though, I assume?

@ hafk

I was talking about RB2

@ jsn

Well...you spend $150 dollars on DLC and now they any asshole "could" get the same stuff for free.

It's like if Rockstar sold DLC right to MS for 50Mill then announced they would be giving them to Sony for free.

Microphone: Confirmed to be compatible (as well as any USB mic)

Drums: No comment yet. It couldn't be possible for X, since that requires the complete set, but it could work for B-E-M-H.

They should just include all the songs on the disc... at least for the PS3 version.

I dont know much about these music games but acces to the old version songs always seemd like a no grainer.
Now make these as a free DLC catalog for everyone with RB2 to get any individual song from RB1 and theres a good bonus vs GH.

Sigh, next week can't come soon enough. Needs more Crash Bandicoot.

Rock Bandicoot hero 2 CONFIRMED!

DUDE THIS IS GREAT, I'M TOTALLY IGNORING THE FACT THAT IT HAS "RUMOR" WRITTEN ALL OVER IT

My jubilation over this is also a rumor.

As an owner of the original rockband, I think it's only fair if we get to download the RB2 songs as free dlc too. lol.

Sounds too good to be true. This is music we're talking about after all. The Record labels wouldn't stand for such generosity

Joystiq am fail. Not only was this covered by other sites several days ago, but it has been debunked as mis-typed speculation/wishing by Nate Ahearn from a post on the IGN Boards from Hilary Goldstein. Nate hasn't even seen the game at all: http://boards.ign.com/xbox_360_general_board/b8266/166607692/p1/?38

But y'know, great job at getting the story out fast, Joystiq!

Haha, so they finally post on the thing I pointed out in the RB2 setlist post?

If you can’t pick and choose then I’m not taking any of it. World Tour mode forced me to play the same songs over and over to the point where I hate 90% of the original Rock Band setlist. I’m not dogging the feature to dl them, I’m just saying for me its not like 50 more songs for RB2, it’s more like 5 or 10. That said, I’m a little suspicious of this rumor. Seems strange to make Rock Band 1 completely obsolete. Why would any foreigners buy Rock Band 1? Like maybe if you already bought Rock Band 1 then you get all the tracks, but to essentially give them game away for free is weird. It’s not like Madden 08 is free when Madden 09 comes out.

Harmonix: We Try Harder.

Anyone notice that IGN has this habit of breaking stories, pulling them from the site, and then they get announced a week or two later?

Yeah I have. Which gives me all the more reason to believe this is true. While I may not want all the songs off the first disc, I would still dl them all unless I have to re-do all my scores. I really do not want to have to re-gold star over 40 songs and not even match my highest score(s) thus having to do them over again. It would be cool if our scores also carried over with all the dlc. That's really all I care about. If not then there's no point in having the whole rb disc as dlc let alone any of it.

Does anyone actually listen to IGN podcasts? Nate Ahearn is a complete idiot. So I could buy both scenarios, either he was an idiot and said something that he shouldn't have, or he was an idiot and talking out his butt. But I would take whatever that idiot says with a grain of salt.

Fact is, as a musician myself, (I study cello, bass guitar, and piano) and have actually used "real" recording software etc., GH:WT more then likely is going to be less then expected. Seriously, if you want to record your own music, go out and pickup a program like sonar. Using a plastic guitar controller to write music sounds like absolutely no fun at all. And I'm sorry but I can see the guitar list being overflooded with mario and halo themes, and a bunch of heavy metal crap. Besides, what's the point without lyrics? At least with Rock Band, you know every song will always have a vocal option. I understand because of "legal" issues GH:WT avoided adding vocals, but seriously it defeats the point of having a "full" band experience and besides I want a music game to be just that, a music game, if I want to write and record music, I'm going to buy programs written just for that.

Whats the point without lyrics?
Whats the point without lyrics?
Whats the point without lyrics?

*saying this while listening to The Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater*

Besides, it should be pretty easy to filter through the content anyway. The crap should be downvoted, and the good stuff will be upvoted. And also, as a last resort, you can always trust Scorehero to know what are the good charts on the service.

I plan on releasing some How-to-technique charts, featuring how to play trills and decending triplets at different tempos and different fingerings.

Also, instrumentals are awesome. That is the one thing I absolutely HATE about Rock Band. Instrumentals often are a showcase of skilled instruemtalists, and they can really show off the best of one's work.

I would kill to have Dream Theater's Instrumedley on a fake plastic rock game.

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Rumor: Rock Band 2 to feature all RB1 tracks as free DLC [update]

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