Posts Tagged ‘Rock Band’
By: Jon Christensen on November 11th, 2008 am30 2:28 am
Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy are the co-founders of the music gaming company Harmonix. These guys are so talented, they created two highly successful franchises with both Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Not only did their company develop some of the biggest games in the world today — they’re now ridiculously rich. And they’re not ‘video game rich,’ but ‘Hollywood A-list rich.’
Because of the sales of Rock Band — Which exceeded expectations, they received a pretty bonus from Viacom Inc, parent company of MTV Games. The New York based media company paid a combine $300 Million to both Rigopulos and Egozy. Which gives each of them a 150,000,000 big-ones.
With the endless amount of Rock Band games that will come out and the new Beatles version that was just announced, plus the downloads that appear every week — these two guys should be billionaires in no time. Boy, do we all suck…
Source: bloomberg
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By: Jon Christensen on October 30th, 2008 am31 12:28 am
The Wall Street Journal is reporting from multiple sources that Rock Band has signed the biggest name in the history of rock n’ roll — The Beatles. The deal is expected to be announced during a conference tomorrow by MTC and Apple Corps Ltd who are the record label for the legendary band. The group is responsible for creating such masterpieces as ‘Revolver‘ and the ‘White Album,’ and they have sold over a billion records internationally.
For the last few months Activision, who is the publisher of Guitar Hero have been in a on going battle with EA to sign The Beatles and the number mentioned above is a clear indication onto why they both were. Because EA/MTV ‘outbid’ Activision this could be a big blow to Guitar Hero. However, with plenty of other bands out there — you have to wonder if Activision will aggressively purse them because of their failure to sign the Beatles.
At this point, no one knows how the developers of Rock Band will include the Beatles into the game. Obviously it could be either a simple DLC with a pack of songs or we could see a dedicated game with just the band included. They certainly have enough songs to make it worth the purchase. And if both Harmoix and Apple records are smart — they would absolutely sell a full fledge game.
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By: Jon Christensen on October 23rd, 2008 am31 6:26 am
One of my guilty pleasures in the ’90s was the band ‘The Presidents of the United States of America.’ Although to be honest, I don’t think I’ve listened to their music for at least 10 years now. However, thanks to the power of Rock Band, I think that might change. Because over at the bands official website, they announced on election day (Nov 4.), three of their songs will be available as a track pack. The downloadable content will include, “Dune Buggy,” “Ladybug,” and “Feather Pluck’n.”
I have to wonder why they didn’t they didn’t included some of their more famous songs such as Peaches.” Oh well, at least I’m going to listen to them again and I guess that’s the point.
via filefront
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By: Jon Christensen on October 21st, 2008 am31 2:59 am
Even though the title ‘Rock Band‘ implies the game is all about ‘rock n’ roll,’ it apparently should be called Band. Because one employee who works for the team behind the game — Harmonix, wrote about how County and maybe other genres could be coming to their latest rhythm game.
“With so many genres represented in Rock Band already, why would the addition of Country be such a huge shock? We’ll have Country in RB sooner or later. Ideally we’ll have all the various sub genres that people are clamoring for eventually. We haven’t shut the door on anything.”
It shouldn’t be surprised to anyone that we could see the game be open to other forms of music. Heck, they even have some punk and ska in Rock Band & the sequel. But country would be a first in the series. With the millions of Americans who listen to the popular genre, I’m sure they’ll welcome it with open arms.
And when the employee mentioned they haven’t ’shut the door’ on anything, does that mean we’re going see the possibility of rap music included as DLC? We think so…
Source: 1up
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By: Jon Christensen on October 13th, 2008 pm31 6:09 pm
The album Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe was not only considered to be their strongest album, but it was the first time they topped the sales chart selling more than 6 million records. Dr. Feelgood is going to be the sixth full album to be available for Rock Band.
Starting October 14 for the Xbox 360 and October 16 for the PlayStation 3, Dr. Feelgood will be offered as a download for $15.99 (1280 MS Points), or $1.99 (160 MS Points) per song. The other albums that have been released for Rock Band are:
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Rush: Moving Pictures
Megadeth: Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?
Pixies: Doolittle
Judas Priest: Screaming For Vengeance
The Cars: The Cars
The track listing for Dr. Feelgood is below.
1. “Dr. Feelgood”
2. “Slice of Your Pie”
3. “Rattlesnake Shake”
4. “Kickstart My Heart”
5. “Without You”
6. “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)”
7. “Sticky Sweet”
8. “She Goes Down”
9. “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”
10. “Time for Change”
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By: Jamie York on October 7th, 2008 am31 12:07 am
If you head over to official site of Rock band, you will notice a whole new layout starting today. The new site finally has a lot of features they have been promising to add since the original Rock Band released last year. The site actually interacts with your Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (when it is soon released) Rock Band video disc to offer some innovative new features.
Some of the cool new things the site now offers
* Take pictures of your created characters. Select from tons of poses, backgrounds, and effects!
* Make merchandise for your video game band featuring your created characters. You can now order buttons, stickers, posters and shirts of your bands or characters!
* Make “Bandmates” figures. Order custom-made, detailed 6″ figures of your characters!
If you want to check out some of the cool things added to the site go to their site, it has demo videos of each of these new features — so you can see what it’s all about first hand.
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By: Jon Christensen on October 4th, 2008 am31 1:51 am
Rock Band is quickly taking over the music industry with a slew of songs coming out for the rhythm game. Harmonix hitting their target of 500 songs available for the game by Christmas is almost a reality. And starting next week, you can add nine more tracks to the mix. Three of the nine songs are recored by the alternative band The Offspring and they included their ’sell-out’ hit “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) (above).” Here is the complete list of songs for download next week, each song will sell for 160 MS Points for Xbox Live and $1.99 for PSN.
The Offspring:
“Gone Away”
“Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)”
“Self Esteem”
Individual Songs:
“Stop!” - Against Me!
“All Right Now” - Free
“Bad to the Bone” - George Thorogood and the Destroyers
“Cream & Bastards Rise” - Harvey Danger
“Nearly Lost you” - Screaming Trees
“Push It” - Static-X
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By: Jon Christensen on September 30th, 2008 am30 12:32 am
Retail giant Walmart has ink a deal with EA and Rock Band to sell an exclusive disc featuring the ultra famous band AC/DC. The recordings of the songs look to be from their entire set list from the DVD ‘Live At Donington.’
Just recently, AC/DC had just signed a contract with the same big box store to solely distribute their fifteenth studio album ‘Black Ice,’ on October 21. Obviously, this deal is to cause awareness for both AC/DC and Walmart about the exclusive deal between the band and company.
The game isn’t an expansion and the consumer doesn’t need to purchase either Rock Band nor the sequel. Although the game does not have an official release date (we think the 21st), it does have a weird retail price of $29.88 and will be available for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2. The picture above has the complete track list for the game. We might have to take a trip to Walmart for the first time in along time to pick this up.
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By: Jon Christensen on September 29th, 2008 pm30 2:12 pm
If you decided to buy Rock Band 2 but never purchased the first installment and hoped Harmonix will offer the songs as DLC, you’re going to be out of luck. Variety is reporting directly from MTV Games that the songs from the original game will never be featured as DLC.
If you were hoping to jam songs from the first game, you’re not completely screwed. You could obviously just buy the game or if you can’t offered it — just rent it. If you choose to rent Rock Band, go into Xbox Live and spend 400 MS points ($5) and you’ll have the ability to export songs.
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By: Jon Christensen on September 23rd, 2008 pm30 3:36 pm
If you want to play Rock Band 1 & 2 but you’re on a limited budget, this might interest you. Gameshard has introduced drum pads they say are officially license by EA. Here’s the kicker, the pads you hit can go anywhere — in theory, you can set them up on the floor (foot pedal could be hard to stomp) or put them on a table and then you are ready to go. No setting up any kind poles or adjusting the height. Its perfect for any kid with a serious case ADD.
If you wondering if the pads might have a problem with durability, Gameshard has promised each pad can “withstand over 1 million strikes,” and can be smacked hard. In a sense, it could be the first portable drum set for Rock Band.
The drums will cost $59.99 and below are the features listed.
* Portable, lightweight, and designed for use on nearly any flat surface
* Small footprint for compact storage
* Drumheads designed to withstand over 1 million strikes
* Ultra-thin navigation panel for quick in-game setup
* Kick drum foot pedal included
* Portable, lightweight, and designed for use on nearly any flat surface
* Includes 2 two-piece soft-tip replacement drumsticks
* 9.8 Ft. (3m) Cable
Source: geekalerts
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By: Jon Christensen on September 19th, 2008 am30 1:09 am
Here is the video of Stephen Colbert introducing his ’single’ from the 80’s from his ‘band that never made,’ called ‘Stephen & the Colbets‘. He also mentions it’s the same song that can be downloaded right now for both Rock Band and it’s sequel.
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By: Jon Christensen on September 18th, 2008 am30 3:43 am
Coke vs Pepsi, Nike vs Rebook, and the WWF vs WCW are some examples of epic battles of companies competing against each other. One that has brewing for about year now has just gotten a little more vicious. While speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVII Conference, bigwig at Activision Bobby Kotick talked about how the Guitar Hero franchise is far superior than EA’s Rock band.
“We’re outselling [Rock Band] 6:1. When you think about the access we have to 30% of the world’s music at Universal, we have a unique advantage there. I would also say when you look at resources, you know, our next-nearest competitor has a couple of hundred people working on these projects, we have close to 2000 people just dedicated to the Guitar Hero note tracking, introduction of new hardware, introduction of new software, and so we just have a lot more in the way of resources available to us to continue to dominate the category.”
If you’re like me and enjoy Rock Band more than Activision’s Guitar Hero, you might want to put away you fanboyism while you read this. It’s true, Guitar Hero has in fact sold better. At the same time, the brand name is much more recognizable for the casual gamer. And we all know, casual gamers make companies richer, thus they seem to focus on them more. And for good reason.
But it’s also unfair to say GH is going to outsell Rock Band in the future. There is a few other reasons why GH has moved more games. One of the biggest reasons why we feel GH sold more units than its arch rival, isn’t because most people feel it’s a better product. In fact Rock Band ended up getting considerably more favorable reviews according to critics. But I believe the real reason why GH was more profitable was the fact it was cheaper and many people already owned the hardware.
The bundle of the original RB debuted at $169.99 last November — compared to Guitar Hero III’s price of $99.99. Not only that, Guitar Hero had the option of purchasing just the game and without the hardware. You would have to believe at least half of the consumers who bought GH purchased just the game for $69.99. When you compare $69.99 to $169.99 and the casual gamer has the choice to pick either or — what do you think they’re going to select?
When Guitar Hero: World Tour finally makes it’s way to the stores and it competes ‘head to head‘ with Rock Band 2, then we can actually make claims which is more profitable. We truly feel when it’s all said and done, Rock Band 2 will become king of the rhythm games.
Thanks to Kotaku
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By: Jon Christensen on September 11th, 2008 pm30 11:57 pm
This week is a crazy week for Rock Band. On Saturday Rock Band 2 will be released in stores everywhere. And right now Harmonix has done a track I don’t think any one of us would have guessed — But than again, who would have thought we would have seen ‘Still Alive‘ from Portal.
Hop on your Xbox right now, and check out the downloads for Rock Band and you’ll see a song from Stephen Colbert’s mock 80’s band, ‘Stephen and the Colberts.’ Although it’s not the best song nor does it really ‘rock,’ but at least it’s free. Check out the video above and hear the song…
[Thanks Smith]
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By: Jon Christensen on September 9th, 2008 pm30 5:32 pm
One of /empire’s closest friend, Jamie, had the opportunity to have a dream come true, thanks to Harmonix and Rock Band. You see, Jamie like a lot of other people in the world, always wanted to be a Rock Star. Because life is cruel, most people don’t even get to play in front of 100 people never mind being a star.
Mötley Crüe latest tour involved a contest where you and three buddies would come to the show, play Rock Band and if you get the highest score you win. The prize isn’t money or a free swag, but the chance to play before Mötley Crüe on stage. In theory, you would be opening for Mötley Crüe. Thanks to his addiction to video games, Jamie and his three friends did just that.
His dream came true for one night, and got a taste of what a Rock Star feels like. Watch the video above, and see him sing ‘Enter Sandman‘ by Metallica on stage at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA.
After the jump, read his experience that he wrote.
(more…)
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By: admin on July 14th, 2008 am31 3:18 am
Let’s face it… most video gamers aren’t cool enough to be a Guitar Hero in real life. The company that owns T-Shirt Hell and Torsopants has created a great line of t-shirts which more accurately reflect reality. BandGeekHero.com sells t-shirts with nearly every uncool band instrument known to man: from the recorder to the tambourine. Did I mention I was in Middle School Chorus? What a horrible mess that must have sounded like. T-shirts are available in a variety of different styles and sizes, starting at $18.
Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashgamer.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at slashgamer@gmail.com.
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