Joystiq

RockBand.com updated, custom merch now available

Ross Miller — 2008-10-07T00:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

The Rock Band website has received a rather massive overhaul. Navigation has been streamlined, a catalog of every RB song has been added (each with a written description) and the long-awaited Merch Booth section has opened up, allowing you to take pictures of virtual band and purchase merchandise -- buttons, stickers, posters and shirts.

Perhaps the coolest addition is the ability to order 6" figures of your Rock Band 2 characters. As of this writing, the servers are being hammered, so we've unfortunately been unable to even preview what The Blueberry Muffintops look like in miniature, plastic form. Let us know if you've had any luck and, please, feel free to show off your band photos in the comments below.

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Rock Band song unlock code works in Rock Band 2 ... too

Justin McElroy — 2008-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Normally, we'd chastise for wanting to unlock all the content in a game without all the normally requisite work, but this is Rock Band 2 we're talking about! What, we ask, is more rock 'n' roll than getting something without working for it? Nothing, that's what. It's in that rock spirit we offer up the following code to be entered on the game modifier screen to instantly unlock all the game's tunes: Red, Yellow, Blue, Red, Red, Blue, Blue, Red, Yellow, Blue.

If it seems familiar, it's because it's the same code from the first Rock Band. Unlike the first game though, you'll permanently have an "unlock all songs" modifier to select, so you'll never have to enter the code twice. Efficiency may be a lot less rocking than instant gratification, but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate it.

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Rock Band 2, standalone instruments coming next week

Ross Miller — 2008-09-10T18:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Harmonix has announced that the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band 2 has officially shipped to retailers in time for its September 14 release date. The standalone wireless drums and guitar are also shipping sometime next week for $90 and $70, respectively. Also shipping next week are Mad Catz's "Fender P-Bass" wireless guitar controller ($70) and the ION Drum Rocker set (wired; $300).

The press release also reminded us that the RB Music Store had recently surpassed 21 million song downloads since its launch in late November. That's 15 million more since we last heard about it in March and an average of 2.3 million per month.

Gallery: ION Drum Rocker Unboxing and Set Up

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Rock Band 2 getting full albums from Foo Fighters, Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, more

Justin McElroy — 2008-08-28T09:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Rather than parsing the info out in tantalizing nuggets, Harmonix/MTV has just given us an expansive look at the future of Rock Band, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. The magazine revealed six of the full albums headed to Rock Band 2, which we'll now happily pass along to you:

Foo Fighters -- "The Colour and the Shape"
Red Hot Chili Peppers -- "Blood Sugar Sex Magik"
Jane's Addiction -- "Nothing's Shocking"
Megadeth -- "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying"
Stevie Ray Vaughn -- "Texas Flood"

The last album is a best-of No Doubt compilation made specifically for the game. Rather than try to impose our own musical tastes on you, we'll just pass the mic your way and ask which of those records has your head banging in anticipation.

[Thanks, Jon]

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Rock Band Weekly: Rush's Moving Pictures album

Ross Miller — 2008-08-21T15:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Harmonix has sent out the first Rock Band Community Zine, which revealed (rather earlier than usual) that Rush's Moving Pictures album will be available to download and play next week. Hopefully the band has been practicing.

Rush - Moving Pictures (880 / $11)

Tom Sawyer (Original) (160 / $2)
Red Barchetta (160 / $2)
YYZ (160 / $2)
Limelight (Original) (160 / $2)
The Camera Eye (160 / $2)
Witch Hunt (160 / $2)
Vital Signs (160 / $2)

Videos for the tracks can be found after the break. The songs will be available for download next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively.

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Overheard@E3: The Who said what?

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-07-17T00:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture

"We're a Who cover band, we're not nearly as good as all the others." -- The Who guitarist Pete Townshend.

The Who, the freakin' WHO, are on stage right now and this is the event of E3 2008. We probably won't be able to liveblog this while we're rockin' out, but check back later for pics of some industry folks off the clock. OK, we're missing the concert ... gotta run. Update: Check out our full gallery here.

Gallery: Joystiq @ The Who Rock Band concert

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Overheard@E3: 'I feel kind of bad that we're turning people into drummers'

Richard Mitchell — 2008-07-15T19:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, E3

When we sat down to get a fresh look at Rock Band 2 at the Harmonix E3 booth, the musical members of the dev team were happy to tell us that many people who try Rock Band wind up pursuing real instruments as a result. When discussing the new drum trainer in Rock Band 2, Senior Designer Dan Teasdale told us, "I feel kind of bad that we're turning people into drummers." Teasdale, as it turns out, is a ~~bass player~~ bassist.

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Harmonix clarifies RB1 compatibility to Rock Band 2

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-07-15T18:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Rhythm

We spent some time with Dan Teasdale, senior designer of Rock Band 2, and asked him several questions -- but we really wanted to know what's the deal with transfers of Rock Band tracks to the new game. We wanted to know a little bit more about what Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos meant at the Microsoft press conference when he said most songs would be available for import.

Teasdale tells us that the final list of songs not transferable to RB2 is still up in the air and it all comes down to licensing issues. We heard from a separate source that "it should only be a couple songs" and, although the company would love to just do the whole set from the first game, there may be some exclusivity issues. Harmonix apparently had to re-license every song over again for the RB2 transfers.

Gallery: Rock Band 2

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Official Rock Band 2 web site launches

Kyle Orland — 2008-07-15T11:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

You've scoped out the new instruments, you've memorized the track list, new you can explore around the official web site for Rock Band 2. A quick perusal of the site reveals no real new information, but there is a nice high-res trailer for the game as well as some cool wallpapers and such to download.

Interesting, the site links two two separate retailers for "official" pre-orders: One from Gamestop which lists the Xbox 360 special edition bundle at $189.99 and one from Amazon that lists it at $199.99. Gamestop also list a PS2 version at a discounted $179.99. A true rock star probably wouldn't care about these minor discrepancies, but for a struggling garage band, those are spare dollars that could go to cheetos and gas for the van.

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Rock Band adding seven countries to ticket in July

Jason Dobson — 2008-07-14T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

No longer will Belgium virtual rockers have to settle for playing air guitar to dreams of living room stardom, as Harmonix and MTV have announced plans to bring Rock Band to Belgians, as well as those in six other countries later this month, including Italy, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

According to the duo, the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band will be the lead SKU in these territories, shipping on July 24, with other fake instrument flavors arriving sometime later in the fall. As with the existing European release, the disc will include all 58 tracks found on the North American version as well as nine non-English tunes such as Die Toten Hosen's Hier Kommt Alex, Oasis' Rock 'n' roll star, and Playmo's New Wave. We welcome our new friends to the stage -- may you never fail out and your fingers never cramp.

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Ion reveals $299.99 price for premium Rock Band drums

Kyle Orland — 2008-07-11T18:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Thought $180 for the original Rock Band package was expensive? You ain't seen nothing yet. The official Web site for Ion's professional Drum Rocker (as recently revealed in Game Informer) lists a $299.99 price for the deluxe drum controller. Only the Xbox 360 version of the set is currently available for pre-order, though Wii and PS3 editions are "expected to ship later in the year," according to the site. It's important to note that this is not the official drum set that will be packaged with Rock Band 2, but rather an officially licensed deluxe set that works with both Rock Band games.

While $300 may sound steep (soon, you could get a whole 'nother Xbox 360 for that price), Ion sounds like they've gone to great lengths to make sure serious virtual drummers get their money's worth. According to the site, the four high-durability, quiet, velocity-sensitive pads can be mounted and rearranged in any position and even outfitted with "professional drum brains" from Alesis. Add in a metal-reinforced kick pedal (with velcro and spikes to prevent slippage) and two packaged, mountable cymbals (with the option to add a third) and you've got what's unquestionably the Rolls Royce of drum controllers.

The web site also has a short video and some detailed photos of the set, so check it out and figure out for yourself whether it's worth dropping three Benjamins.

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E3 Rock Band invite resembles Rock Band 2 concept cover

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-06-23T19:11:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

When a few lucky members of Joystiq got their invites to the Rock Band Bash, to be held during E3, the image seemed oddly familiar ... where had we seen that before? Y'know, it strongly resembles one of the designs revealed in a marketing survey asking questions about Rock Band 2 (a copy of which we've placed after the break).

Compare: The drummer, vocalist and bass player are nearly identical while the original image's guitarist has been swapped out for a female, balancing the male/female ratio for this potential RB2 cover (compared to Rock Band's all-male cover). Could it simply be leftover marketing art or a subtle tease of what's to come?

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Activision and MTV Games in talks for Beatles catalog

Christopher Grant — 2008-06-23T13:09:00+00:00

Filed under: Rhythm, Business

While we may find ourselves favoring Rock Band's a la carte offerings far more than Activision's band-themed bundles, we're not sure whose model will win in the long run. Take the Beatles for example: getting the notoriously protective (note: they're not even on iTunes) band's tracks onto either offering (or both!) would be a huge coup, to be sure, but wouldn't Guitar Hero: Beatles be more attractive to the license holder than some downloadable tracks for Rock Band?

FT.com revisits the pursuit and reports that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Beatles "representatives have held discussions with both Activision and MTV Games" in pursuit of a "final deal [that] would be worth several million dollars" and "could be reached in a matter of weeks." Well, we'll be here in a matter of weeks ... say, E3 would be a really nice time to announce something. We're just sayin' ...

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Man drops lawsuit over Rock Band instrument bundling

Kyle Orland — 2008-06-12T12:55:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

With all the rhythm game-related lawsuits flying around in recent months, it seems we totally missed a class-action lawsuit filed back in March by one Michael Antonelli against Rock Band makers Harmonix, Electronic Arts and Viacom (owner of MTV). It seems Antonelli was upset that the companies weren't offering a standalone guitar for the game, requiring PS3 owners to buy two full, $170 bundles in order to play with the full four-player setup (Xbox 360 owners could use Guitar Hero II's USB guitar).

Well, we're not too broken out about missing this news the first time around, because Next Gen is reporting that Antonelli dropped the suit as of June 6. We can't say we blame him, as the standalone guitar he wanted has been announced since February and available since April.

While it's always nice to see a frivolous lawsuit drop to the side of the road, it's also a little sad. Just think of all those hours spent preparing those pointless legal briefs -- those are hours that could have been spent rocking out! It's a shame, really ...

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Rumor: MTV ad 'leaks' new Rock Band tracks

Randy Nelson — 2008-06-11T16:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Rhythm

Has MTV let the tracks out of the bag? An eagle-eyed poster at the Bemanistyle forums captured some stills from a commercial airing on the network promoting today's newly released MTV2 track pack. What's interesting: whoever made the video used in the ad seems to have forgotten to omit bits that show four new, as-of-yet-unreleased tracks for Rock Band.

We haven't seen the ads ourselves, but the grabs look legit. If they are, here's what Rock Band groupies have to look forward to at some point in the (probably) not-to-distant-future:

o. "Aesthetics of Hate" by Machine Head
o. "Afterlife" by Avenged Sevenfold
o. "Breed" by Nirvana
o. "Burn" by Nine Inch Nails

[Thanks, Jon D!]

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Missing masters may be behind Who's Next DLC delay

Kyle Orland — 2008-06-06T10:45:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Fans of The Who (Who? That's what I wanna know!) were understandably confused when the first full downloadable album for Rock Band was announced as Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance and not the long-promised Who's Next. Now a Rock Band forum poster thinks he may have stumbled across a a potential reason for the delay: missing master tapes.

In a February 2008 interview with thewho.com, ~~band~~ ~~frontman~~ guitarist Pete Townsend admitted the album "is no longer a complete set of masters. An entire side has been stolen from our vaults at some point." Since the master for Won't Get Fooled Again is already in the core game, the missing half is probably side 1 of the album, which includes classics like Baba O'Riley and Bargain. "These things happen," Townsend said by way of explanation.

Of course, there's nothing to say these tracks couldn't be replaced with cover versions in an eventual download pack, but this would seem to go against the spirit of the full album download program, at the very least. We've asked Harmonix for a comment on this story and will let you know if and when they respond.

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Rock Band heads to Japan with help from Q Entertainment

Ross Miller — 2008-06-02T14:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

Harmonix and MTV are bringing Rock Band to Japan with some help from Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Q Entertainment (Lumines). According to the press release, "The two studios will work together to develop the title, marking the first US-originated rock music game to be heavily localized for the Japanese market." No clue on what that heavy localization will entail.

It has been little over a week since a Harmonix rep was asked about the possibility of seeing Japanese content in Rock Band. At the time, the rep said an official announcement on future DLC plans would arrive in "a little over a week." So, the question remains: How does one program instrument tracks for a Genki Rockets song?

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Survey hints at Rock Band 2 with online world tour, drum trainer

Ross Miller — 2008-05-15T14:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

We've received a handful of anonymous tips indicating that Electronic Arts is conducting surveys (surprise!) for Rock Band 2. From what we've seen, the survey is being conducted by Listen Research for EA. The survey breaks down as follows:

The sequel will be full featured and will represent a jump similar to that from Guitar Hero I to GHII, or GHII to GHIII.
Separate questions ask the likelihood of purchasing Rock Band 2 Special Edition (i.e. the full instrument package) for $199, $169 and $149, respectively. All current Rock Band consoles (PS3, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii) are mentioned.
There are questions concerning Rock Band Track Pack: Volume 1 and how many expansion packs you are expecting to purchase in the next six months.
The survey asks likelihood of purchasing Rock Band over a multi-instrument version of Guitar Hero.

EA reportedly provided details on the new features for Rock Band 2 in some of the surveys, but we haven't been able to confirm this. New additions to World Tour mode are said to include online play, the recording of music videos and hiring of staff members. Other new features include Battle of the Bands, competing against other bands in daily and weekly battles, setting challenges to progress through your band's discography in increasingly harder setlists, as well as a drum trainer mode.

We've requested comment from MTV, Electronic Arts and Harmonix.

[Thanks to Andre and everyone else who sent this in!]

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Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 1 coming to PS2, Wii this July

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-05-05T12:56:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Rhythm

"I'm perfectly satisfied," you say to yourself as your fingers dart across spongy, fake frets. "I don't need those fancy high-definition graphics. As long as I can make out the notes, I'm happy. Heck, I can even see them when I close my eyes." Indeed, you're more than delighted with the PS2 version of Rock Band, the musical friend that keeps you company as you rock out in the basement. Alone.

EA, Harmonix and MTV Games can't help you with your graphics or self-deception issues, but they can offer you some of the downloadable tracks that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners of Rock Band have been enjoying. Mind you, they won't be "downloadable" so much as they'll be purchasable for $29.99. The Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1, headed for Wii (the full game is out on June 22) and PlayStation 2 on July 15th, will contain 20 songs from such artists as David Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Weezer and Oasis.

Peer past the break for the full list and see if you go, "Ah, there's that song I like! I will gladly purchase this standalone set of tracks! I'm still talking to myself!"

30 Seconds to Mars -- "The Kill"
All American Rejects -- "Move Along"
Blink - 182 -- "All the Small Things"
Boston -- "More Than a Feeling"
David Bowie -- "Moonage Daydream"
Faith No More -- "We Care A Lot"
Grateful Dead -- "Truckin'"
The Hives -- "Die, All Right!"
KISS -- "Calling Dr. Love"
Lynyrd Skynyrd -- "Gimme' Three Steps"
Nine Inch Nails -- "March of the Pigs"
Oasis -- "Live Forever"
Paramore -- "Crushcrushcrush"
The Police -- "Synchronicity II"
Queens of the Stone Age -- "Little Sister"
Ramones -- "Teenage Lobotomy"
Smashing Pumpkins -- "Siva"
Stone Temple Pilots -- "Interstate Love Song"
Weezer -- "Buddy Holly"
Wolfmother -- "Joker & the Thief"

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Judas Priest to lead Rock Band's full album downloads April 22

Kyle Orland — 2008-04-18T09:53:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm

First promised back in July of '07 and teased again just last month, Rock Band will finally see its first full downloadable album when Judas Priest's "Screaming for Vengeance" becomes available Tuesday, April 22. The set of ten master tracks will be available for $14.99 (that's 1200 Microsoft Points for those who can only make calculations in fake currencies) or individually for $1.99 (160 MS Points) per song.

A Rock Band forum moderator also confirms two more albums coming down the pike sometime soon: The Cars' self-titled debut and The Pixies' "Doolittle." Still no word on The Who's "Who's Next," which was originally promised as the first album available for download, or Nirvana's "Nevermind," which was hinted at in last July's GamePro -- or Cyndi Lauper's "Time after Time," which we've been hoping against hope will be coming ever since the game's release. Oh Cyndi ... why did you ever stop recording?

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