Joystiq

Rock Band Weekly: European release tracks

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-05-16T15:30:00+00:00

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

Hopefully, people have been brushing up on their non-English. This week's Rock Band Weekly brings us the songs packaged with the European release of Rock Band. We've known for a while these tracks were coming as DLC, and Harmonix has seen fit to do it the week of Rock Band's European release. Also, all DLC available in North America should be available in Europe beginning May 20.

Individual songs

"Beetlebum" - Blur (Cover, 160 MS Points / $2)
"Hier Kommt Alex" - Die Toten Hosen (160 MS Points / $2)
"Countdown to Insanity" - H-BlockX (160 MS Points / $2)
"Perfekte Welle" - Juli (160 MS Points / $2)
"Manu Chao" - Les Wampas (160 MS Points / $2)
"Hysteria" - Muse (160 MS Points / $2)
"Rock N Roll Star" - Oasis (160 MS Points / $2)
"New Wave" - Pleymo (160 MS Points / $2)
"Monsoon" - Tokio Hotel (160 MS Points / $2)

Le sigh, videos for all of next week's tracks can be found after the break. The DLC will be available next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

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Rock Band ships 3 million 'bundled' units, 10 million songs downloaded

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-05-02T19:00:00+00:00

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

Harmonix's grand-parent company, Viacom, announced today as part of its Q1 earnings that Rock Band has shipped three million "bundled units." GameDaily reports that the company also stated that Harmonix has had over 10 million songs downloaded for the game.

The last report we had was that Harmonix hit the six million DLC song mark in mid-March, which means the new music store apparently did help accelerate sales. Viacom's CEO said that Rock Band is emerging as a valuable long-term franchise and he expects further success from the Wii and European launches.

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Rock Band Weekly: Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

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

The Rock Band store gets its first full album this week with Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance. The Rock Band forums also mention that The Cars' The Cars and the Pixies' Doolittle are coming in the "near future." The Who's Who's Next is still on the docket, but apparently isn't what's next.

Screaming for Vengeance album (1200 MS points / $15) -- All songs are also sold individually (160 MS Points / $2), except "The Hellion" and "Electric Eye," which are bundled at the price of one track.

"The Hellion"
"Electric Eye"
"Riding on the Wind"
"Bloodstone"
"(Take These) Chains"
"Pain and Pleasure"
"Screaming for Vengeance"
"You've Got Another Thing Comin'"
"Fever"
"Devil's Child"

The videos for this week's Rock Band DLC are after the break ... and sweet mercy, it'd better be appreciated this week. Screaming for Vengeance will be available today on Xbox 360 and Thursday for the PS3.

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Rock Band Wii 'bonus songs' already released on 360/PS3

Zack Stern — 2008-04-15T06:03:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii, Peripherals, Rhythm, Casual

"Bonus" means different things to different people. Harmonix has revealed the Wii's additional Rock Band tracks, and they're a collection of songs you might have already downloaded on the 360 and PS3. There's nothing wrong with that, but why all the secrecy and hype? Here's the list of the five tracks that supplement the original roster:

"Dirty Little Secret" - The All American Rejects
"Don't Look Back in Anger" - Oasis
"Roam" - The B-52's
"Rockaway Beach" - The Ramones
"Roxanne" - The Police

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Rock Band Weekly: Mötley Crüe stumbles in with 'Saints of Los Angeles'

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-14T22:30:00+00:00

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

Coming out of nowhere, a single off of Mötley Crüe's new album will be available as Rock Band downloadable content this week. This marks the first time a brand-new song is released as a playable track in the game. Needless to say, it is a master track.

Individual song

"Saints of Los Angeles" - Mötley Crüe (80 MS points/ $1)

We've placed what we believe is the song after the break -- we're not sure if there's an actual video yet. The rest of this week's Rock Band DLC was previously announced last Friday. The song releases tomorrow on Xbox 360 and this Thursday on the new PSN.

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Rumor: Europe's Rock Band rollin' onto PS3, PS2 and Wii Aug. 29

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii

VideoGamer reports that EA has slated Rock Band's release on PS3, PS2 and Wii in Europe for August 29. This means the Xbox 360 will have three months of exclusivity on the ~~exorbitantly priced~~ enhanced cost game before it releases on other consoles.

Harmonix's PR states it has not made an official announcement on a European release for any other consoles beyond the Xbox 360. We'll update this story if things change, but for now this release date is still in the rumor territory. Either way, there's still plenty of time for non-Xbox 360 owners to sell a kidney (remember, keep at least one!) to afford the game.

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Harmonix: Wii needs hard drive for DLC

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-09T12:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Rhythm

Speaking to CVG, Harmonix Design Director Rob Kay states the Wii needs a hard drive for Rock Band to offer downloadable content on the console. Actually, Kay does more of plea, "Come on Nintendo, we need a hard drive."

Kay explains that Harmonix would "jump on" offering content if it could -- given sales of the DLC it's not surprising -- but notes that Nintendo's console just doesn't have the capabilities currently. He says that a three-song pack is about 100MB and the Wii only has 512MB of internal storage. The whole SD card issue probably gets messy due to retrieval times and DRM issues. Harmonix obviously wants to make more money, but it appears the company won't try to do it while running into a very clear storage (and possibly technological) issue.

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Harmonix blames taxes, other 'little differences' for Rock Band Europe price

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-08T17:00:00+00:00

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

Reaction to Rock Band's European pricing -- the equivalent of about $360 combined (instrument bundle and game are sold separately) -- has been swift and vocal. For example, Guitar Hero III (with guitar) costs £65, while a Rock Band game disc and single guitar will cost roughly £110. VideoGamer spoke to Rob Kay, design director at Harmonix, during the London press event today who said the price difference is caused by "a myriad of little differences that all add up."

Kay explained that VAT adds 17.5% to the total UK price, adding, "We're not trying to screw people." He believes that people who purchase the game will think it's worth the money. Great, hopefully those people will remember to take the silver spoon out of their mouth before trying to sing.

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Exclusive Euro Rock Band tracks will become DLC

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-08T13:30:00+00:00

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

Exclusive just ain't the word it used to be. Rock Band's European debut was going to have some exclusive tracks just for the continent, but ShackNews reports that MTV Games says those tracks will be available in North America as downloadable content. MTV Games did not specify price or timetable for release of the DLC. Now, let's be serious, did anybody ever think those songs would stay exclusive to the continent?

Also, there's some clarification going on in the Rock Band forums that the new songs will be "treated as DLC" in the European version. We're not sure exactly what this means, but we believe that the new songs (some which are sung in French or German) won't be part of the standard campaign.

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Rock Band touring Europe in May, 360 getting it first

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2008-04-08T06:36:00+00:00

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

Electronic Arts has finally announced a release date for fake instrument extravaganza, Rock Band, in the chronically shafted land of Europe. Eurogamer reports that the music-and-rhythmer will launch as a timed Xbox 360 exclusive on May 23rd, with PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Wii versions following "later this summer."

The game will be sold separately from an "Instrument Edition," which is comprised of the drum set, guitar and microphone, priced at GBP 129.99 / EUR 169. Including the cost of the game (we're assuming you want to play something with all that kit), folks in the region are looking to shell out about $360 for tickets to their own concert. Sounds like there'll be less rocking and more wailing among this poor band of gamers. In addition, wireless guitars will be sold separately for GBP 59.99 / EUR 79.99, while the drum kit will go for GBP 69.99 / EUR 89.99.

As a minor consolation, the European version of Rock Band will come with several exclusive tracks from bands such as Oasis, Blur and Muse (you'll find the complete list after the break). If none of those appeal to you, Rock Band's extensive online store will open on May 27th, fully stocked with all existing downloadable tracks. New songs will then become available every week alongside the American releases.

English

"Beetlebum" by Blur
"Rock 'n' Roll Star" by Oasis
"Monsoon" by Tokio Hotel
"Hysteria" by Muse

German

"Hier Kommt Alex" by Die Toten Hosen
"Perfekte Welle" by Juli
"Countdown to Insanity" by H-Block X

French

"Manu Chao" by Les Wampas
"New Wave" by Playmo

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Rock Band Weekly: OXM disc now for download

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-04-04T15:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360

The Rock Band songs featured in the February issue of OXM are now available to download for a dollar each. For those looking to save a couple bucks, there's always the option of hunting down an old issue of OXM at the local library and checking if the disc is still miraculously in there.

HMX pack (240 MS points / $3)

"Rock Rebellion" - Bang Camaro (80 MS points / $1)
"Shake" - Count Zero - (80 MS points / $1)
"Super Sprode" - Freezepop (80 MS Points / $1)

Videos for this week's Rock Band DLC can be found after the break ... yes, enough people asked, so we're going to keep doing it. Don't forget to download "Still Alive," which is available for free. The songs will be available next Tuesday for Xbox 360 and PSN owners will have it available when the store goes back up sometime in April.

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April Fools' Alert #2: The Double Bass controller

Justin McElroy — 2008-04-01T09:35:00+00:00

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

Fantasy Guitar Hero controllers aren't new territory for April Fool's Day, but rarely have we wanted one to be real so badly. Imagine the class, the prestige of striding into the neighboring dorm with GAME's massive double bass controller slung over your back! Imagine how angry your significant other would be when you tried to explain it to him or her!

Also we love the feature bullet points like "Doesn't fold away for easy storage,""May facilitate escape from villains. On ski slopes," and "Fully compatible with Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Rock Band and the slopes of Val d'Isere." Well done, GAME ... now, could you actually make it?

[Thanks, Zak]

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Counting Rupees: Battle of the brands

Jeff Engel — 2008-03-27T20:00:00+00:00

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

Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:

When Guitar Hero 3 launched last year it was an immediate success, selling out at a fairly quick pace throughout the holiday season. Following just behind it was Rock Band, selling very well, but not nearly as quickly as Guitar Hero. So far, all versions of Guitar Hero III have sold about 9.1M copies, versus just roughly 1.5M for Rock Band. Of course, part of the discrepancy lies in the fact that Rock Band launched on two platforms while Guitar Hero 3 launched on four, but that is about to be remedied with Harmonix's recent announcement of Rock Band for Wii. While Rock Band was a more ambitious game and representative of an evolution of the music game, it did seem like Activision may have made the right choice in buying the Guitar Hero publisher (and thus the Guitar Hero brand), but not the developer. With so much brand awareness already built into Guitar Hero, was there any way that Harmonix could possibly top the original creation that it no longer owned the rights to?

Rock Band did have some advantages that would potentially help it close the sales gap. Its ambitious plan to release new tracks on a weekly basis would ensure a potential steady stream of revenue from Rock Band even from those who had already purchased it. In mid-January, Harmonix announced that it had sold over 2.5m songs, and just a few days ago it revealed downloads had surpassed the 6 million song mark. At roughly $2 a song, that's nearly $12,000,000 worth of purchases. If we assume that Microsoft takes 30% of this, that's basically $8.4M going directly to MTV/Harmonix. A $60 game would have to sell 140k copies to generate that much revenue -- altenatively, 52k copies of the Special Edition of Rock Band would have to sell at $160. That may not seem like much, but consider that the $8.4M from DLC does not get impacted by the far higher manufacturing and distribution costs associated with a retail product, nor the increased amount of royalties likely paid per retail product (since there are roughly 60 songs in the game), and it starts looking much better in terms of profitability. Now that Harmonix has unveiled its new in-game store, it seems likely that the developer could actually improve its ability to sell music.

Not to be outdone, though, Guitar Hero has also touted its DLC success, claiming to have sold 5 million downloads back in January. However, it's unclear to me whether that includes all the freebies that Activision released for the game up until that point, including the "boss" battles, the Halo theme song, and the free Christmas download. I'm inclined to think that the numbers Activision released in January actually included the freebies, but even if they didn't, the ratio of DLC per copy sold was still better for Rock Band. Clearly, the constant stream of weekly downloads has proven to be a successful and steady revenue stream for MTV/Harmonix.

While Guitar Hero has offered the occasional piece downloadable content, and has even had some success with it, Activision's strategy for success with the Guitar Hero franchise still appears to be through the retail channel. Like Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80's, which released last Summer, Activision intends to provide another "standalone expansion" of sorts in the Guitar Hero series this June with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. While it will probably sell decently, I was slightly skeptical about its appeal. Guitar Hero is unquestionably popular with gamers, and Aerosmith is an unquestionably popular band, but when it was announced I wondered exactly how many Guitar Hero gamers were actually also big enough fans of Aerosmith to buy a $60 game with a soundtrack mainly (but not entirely) focused on a single band.

Aerosmith has been around for a long time, but I wondered whether they had enough songs worthy of inclusion in a music game (Wikipedia lists 21 "Top 40" singles). Since its announcement, some new details have surfaced that indicate it won't be entirely composed of Aerosmith songs -- probably a good thing since I believe one aspect that people like about these games is the variety. Since the experience in the game will consist of a couple opening acts of music from non-Aerosmith bands, and then a set of Aerosmith music, it does seem like Activision may hit a good mix of both variety for the general Guitar Hero fan and depth for the Aerosmith fan.

Releasing two versions of the Guitar Hero franchise per year is certainly something that could negate the importance of selling Guitar Hero DLC for Activision. Using the current trends for Rock Band, by the time Guitar Hero: Aerosmith launches, Rock Band will have sold roughly 9 million songs, which would translate into about $12.6M for MTV/Harmonix. This would result in a needing to sell at least 210k copies of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and then of course there's the additional development cost of creating a new game (rather than just new content), and the extra distribution costs associated with retail sales. Still, we can probably safely assume that if 500k copies of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith were to be sold, it would likely generate a profit for Activision. I have a feeling it will sell more than that, but for comparison purposes, Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80's sold 810k copies. Interestingly, Activision may not be stopping with the band-centric games after Aerosmith either, as there have already been rumors of a Guitar Hero: U2 and Guitar Hero: Beatles editions. Assuming these are being considered right now, the success of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will probably determine their futures.

The difference in sales strategies (at least so far) doesn't answer the question of whether Rock Band can catch up to Guitar Hero at some point, though. With Guitar Hero's massive advantage in brand awareness, and the fact that it launched a few weeks before Rock Band, Guitar Hero III was able to sell amazingly well. It does not appear that Rock Band will be able to catch Guitar Hero with the current installments, considering the 6 to 1 sales advantage that Guitar Hero III currently holds. However, with their next installments, the Rock Band property could potentially win on the "next-gen" platforms. While Rock Band has not sold more than Guitar Hero III on any platform, part of the huge discrepancy between the sales is Guitar Hero's dominance on the PS2 versus Rock Band. While it came out later, Rock Band for PS2 has only sold a paltry 30k copies compared to 3.59M for Guitar Hero. This could be due to the fact that the PS2 version of the game came slightly "crippled" compared to the next-gen versions, with no "World Tour" mode and no support for DLC. But, more likely, this is simply attributed to the fact that Guitar Hero was already established as a brand on the PS2 where people already had the hardware they needed to play the game, and most people probably didn't want to shell out for an expensive new game with new hardware for their aging system.

If we remove the PS2 and the Wii (for now) from the equation, instead of a 6 to 1 advantage, Guitar Hero III has just over a 2 to 1 advantage over Rock Band. That gap is also shrinking little by little, as in the last two months NPD reports, the 360 version of Rock Band has been outselling the 360 version of Guitar Hero III. With its weekly downloadable content, favorable media reports, and more mainstream sightings, the positive buzz for Rock Band is certainly spreading. Much like the early days of Guitar Hero, the word-of-mouth for Rock Band will ensure that when the next versions of the two games go head-to-head, the "Rock Band" name will at least be far more well known than it was the first time around. While nothing has been officially announced yet for this holiday season in either of these franchises, I have a feeling that we'll be able to test this theory out come November.

As co-editors of A Link To The Future, Geoff and Jeff like to discuss, among many other topics, the business aspects of gaming. Game companies often make decisions that on their face appear baffling, or even infuriating, to many gamers. Yet when you think hard about them from the company's perspective, many other decisions are eminently sensible, or at least appeared to be so based on the conditions at the time those choices were made. Our goal with this column is to start a conversation about just those topics. While neither Geoff nor Jeff are employed in the game industry, they do have professional backgrounds that are relevant to the discussion. More to the point, they don't claim to have all the answers -- but this is a conversation worth having. You can reach them at

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Amazon selling Rock Band for $148, drums on sale too

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-03-26T03:00:00+00:00

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

Amazon.com has a little sale going on for those who haven't jumped on the Rock Band tour bus yet. Cheapy D and his frugal army point the way to savings, with both the PS3 and Xbox 360 Special Editions priced for $148 (which include the game, drums, guitar and mic). The $22 saved won't even come back to bite back on shipping with the use of "Super Saver Shipping."

For those who've already picked up the game and are just in the market for the drum set, the normally $80 peripheral is currently $54 on Xbox 360 and $69 for PS3. Feel free to use the money saved on some Rock Band DLC.

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Rock Band Weekly: Boston six-pack

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-03-21T15:30:00+00:00

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

We've got more than a feeling that next week's Rock Band DLC is bringing a six-pack of songs by Boston. All the tracks hail from the band's self-titled debut album which has sold over 17 million copies. Not bad for a bunch of guys from the small Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon -- no, they're actually from Boston.

Boston pack (800 MS points / $9.99)

Hitch a Ride (160 MS points/ $2)
More Than a Feeling (160 MS points/ $2)
Peace of Mind (160 MS Points / $2)
Rock & Roll Band (160 MS Points / $2)
Smokin' (160 MS Points / $2)
Something About You (160 MS Points / $2)

Videos for this week's Rock Band DLC can be found after the break and this may be our last week doing them as audio previews are now available through the Rock Band music store patch available now. The Boston songs will be available next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

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Rock Band Store launches, is awesome

Kyle Orland — 2008-03-21T10:10:00+00:00

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

The much-improved Rock Band store announced to the world yesterday is now available on Xbox Live and PSN. A 30-second download and installation gives players access to the streamlined song-buying interface, which features audio previews and individual instrument difficulties for each song, as well as a much simpler way to sort and browse through the growing selection of music.

Besides the cool new store, we're also extremely gratified by the much-needed faster loading of DLC provided by the patch. After a one-time file creation upon the first post-patch load, the annoying little "loading additional content" animation was reduced from roughly ten seconds to about one second in our tests on Xbox Live. The physical "download data file" that actually speeds up the process takes up a paltry 112KB on our system, meaning there's no reason not to rock out faster!

Gallery: Rock Band Music Store

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Rock Band surpasses 6 million song downloads

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-03-20T09:38:00+00:00

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

click to enlarge

Rock Band keeps rocking the downloadable content market as Harmonix announced today the game has sold over 6 million songs in just over three months. The title has set the bar for DLC with fresh weekly content and the last update we had about sales numbers stated that Rock Band had sold 2.5 million pieces of DLC around mid-January. We've placed a master list of all the songs available on Rock Band after the break.

Although we'll probably never get a straight answer, it would be nice to find out how much of an impact the new Rock Band music store is expected to make on sales. Having all that DLC available from directly inside the game, rather than making potential customers wander through the virtual aisles of the Xbox Marketplace or PlayStation Store, should make some noticeable difference.

Gallery: Rock Band Music Store

Rock Band master track list as of March 20th, 2008:
Songs marked with an asterisk (*) are covers. All other songs are Master recordings.

1960s
On Rock Band Disc
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones

Downloadable Content
Fortunate Son* - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Last Train to Clarksville* - The Monkees
China Cat Sunflower - Grateful Dead

1970s
On Rock Band Disc
Train Kept A-Rollin'* - Aerosmith
Paranoid* - Black Sabbath
(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Foreplay/Longtime - Boston
Suffragette City - David Bowie
Highway Star - Deep Purple
Detroit Rock City - Kiss
Flirtin' with Distaster - Molly Hatchet
Mississippi Queen* - Mountain
Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones
Ballroom Blitz* - Sweet
Green Grass and High Tides* - The Outlaws
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

Downloadable Content
Sweet Leaf* - Black Sabbath
War Pigs* - Black Sabbath
Ever Fallen in Love* - Buzzcocks
Heroes* - David Bowie
Queen Bitch* - David Bowie
Working Man* - Rush
Action* - Sweet
Bang a Gong - T. Rex
My Sharona* - The Knack
Cherry Bomb* - The Runaways
Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
Casey Jones - Grateful Dead
Franklin's Tower - Grateful Dead
I Need a Miracle - Grateful Dead
Sugar Magnolia - Grateful Dead
Truckin' - Grateful Dead
Calling Dr. Love - KISS
Gimme Three Steps -Lynyrd Skynyrd
Rockaway Beach - Ramones
Teenage Labotomy - Ramones
Complete Control - The Clash
I Fought the Law - The Clash
Can't Stand Losing You - The Police
Roxanne - The Police
Truth Hits Everybody - The Police

1980s
On Rock Band Disc
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
Epic - Faith No More
Run to the Hills* - Iron Maiden
Wave of Mutilation - Pixies
Orange Crush - R.E.M.
Tom Sawyer* - Rush
Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash
Next to You - The Police
Outside - Tribe

Downloadable Content
Juke Box Hero* - Foreigner
The Number of the Beast* - Iron Maiden
Brass in Pocket* - Pretenders
Limelight* - Rush
We Care a Lot - Faith No More
...And Justice for All - Metallica
Blackened - Metallica
Ride the Lighting - Metallica
Roam - The B-52s
Synchronicity II - The Police

1990s
On Rock Band Disc
Sabotage - Beastie Boys
I Think I'm Paranoid - Garbage
Celebrity Skin - Hole
Enter Sandman - Metallica
In Bloom - Nirvana
Creep - Radiohead
Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
Vasoline - Stone Temple Pilots
Say It Ain't So - Weezer

Downloadable Content
Hard to Handle* - Black Crowes
All the Small Things - Blink 182
March of the Pigs - Nine Inch Nails
The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails
Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
Live Forever - Oasis
Wonderwall - Oasis
My Iron Lung - Radiohead
Siva - Smashing Pumpkins
Interstate Love Song - Stone Temple Pilots
Sex Type Thing - Stone Temple Pilots
Buddy Holly - Weezer
El Scorcho - Weezer

2000s
On Rock Band Disc
Blood Doll - Anarchy Club
Pleasure (Pleasure) - Bang Camaro
Welcome Home - Coheed and Cambria
Nightmare - Crooked X
Can't Let Go - Death of the Cool
Dead on Arrival - Fall Out Boy
I'm So Sick - Flyleaf
Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
Brainpower - Freeze Pop
I Get By - Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives
Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet
The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
Here it Goes Again - OK Go
Go with the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Day Late, Dollar Short - The Acro-Brats
Main Offender - The Hives
When You Were Young - The Killers
29 Fingers - The Konks
The Mother Hips - Time We Had
Electric Version - The New Pornographers
Reptilia - The Strokes
Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld - Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld
Seven - Vagiant
Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Downloadable Content
Attack - 30 Seconds to Mars
The Kill - 30 Seconds to Mars
Dirty Little Secret - All-American Rejects
Move Along - All-American Rejects
Ten Speed (of God's Blood and Burial)* - Coheed and Cambria
Song With a Mission* - The Sounds
Shockwave - Black Tide
Why Do You Love Me- Garbage
The Collector - Nine Inch Nails
"Crushcrushcrush"- Paramore
3's & 7's - Queens of the Stone Age
Little Sister - Queens of the Stone Age
Sick, Sick, Sick - Queens of the Stone Age
Beethoven's C*** - Serj Tankian
Die, All Right! - The Hives
Joker & The Thief - Wolfmother
Blinded By Fear - At the Gates
Rock Rebellion - Bang Camaro
Shake - Count Zero
Thrasher - Evile
Sprode - Freezepop
D.O.A. - The Haunted

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Rock Band patch also fixing incidental issues

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-03-20T09:35:00+00:00

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

The Rock Band music store won't be the only thing added by the forthcoming patch, with several fixes to the game included as well. Harmonix states that the patch fixes "some of the common issues" it's heard about on Rockband.com.

Fan cap revision -- Increase on number of fans possible before cap. Easy players can travel across Atlantic, Medium players have a wider range of venues and Hard players on the Xbox 360 can unlock "One Million Fans" achievement.
Increased diversity in Band World Tour song selection.
Improved phoneme recognition -- Improved detection and scoring for phoneme recognition. Examples are songs like Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld and Blitzkrieg Bop.
Microphone latency on PS3 improved.
Xbox 360 band logos now visible through Xbox LIVE -- Parental controls prevented band logos from being visible over Xbox LIVE.
Faster loading of DLC -- Songs are cached for a one time wait.

The company admits that this does not fix every issue out there and states Harmonix is "listening to all of your requests, and actively want to get these features onto the Rock Band platform in the future."

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New Rock Band Store reminds us full albums are still 'coming soon'

Ross Miller — 2008-03-20T09:30:00+00:00

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

One thing we noticed when perusing over these hawt new pics of the in-game Rock Band music store was a listing for "Albums (Coming Soon)." Downloadable albums are something we've heard about since July 2007, with Nirvana's Nevermind and The Who's Who's Next cited as the first contenders.

When contacted for a statement, a Harmonix spokesperson told us, "No ETA yet - expect an announcement soon." For now, all we can recommend is you download the patch later this week and ogle at the inaccessible Albums tab, dreaming of the day when the text goes from light grey to white.

Gallery: Rock Band Music Store

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Rock Band music store rockin' consoles this week

Alexander Sliwinski — 2008-03-20T09:30:00+00:00

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

At some point this week Harmonix will finally launch the Rock Band music store, a fully integrated shop allowing players to preview and purchase tracks without ever leaving the comfy confines of the game. Songs in the store will provide a difficulty metric for each instrument and the DLC can be organized by artist, genre, difficulty and year of release.

Harmonix tells us that this is the "only patch planned" at this time, so players looking to streamline their multiplayer registration experience or do Band World Tour online are gonna have to sit tight. Also, be sure to continue checking with us every Friday for the latest Rock Band DLC announcements with Rock Band Weekly.

Gallery: Rock Band Music Store

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