As if all four new Guitar Heroes weren’t enough, now Rock Band is looking to keep pace with the newest project Pearl Jam Live Rock Band. The Escapist reports that Pearl Jam is working with video game developer Harmonix, MTV Games and online music service Rhapsody to produce a game that features live concert tracks chosen by fans themselves.
You can go to the Pearl Jam Website, and vote on the tracks that you want included in the game. With a Rhapsody subscription, clicking on a song pulls up a playlist “widget” with multiple live versions of that song. The live versions that get the most plays will then “be in consideration to make the final set list for the game.”
Besides the cool new Nintendo DSi video with Jamie Lidell, other music game tidbits include Guns N’ Roses latest album Chinese Democracy in its entirety on Rock Band as downloadable content on April 14, and the release of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits in June, which will be a “best of” collection of the Guitar Hero series’ most popular songs.
RedOctane, the company that publishes the Guitar Hero franchise, is tackling the Hip Hop genre next with DJ Hero, which they believe will expand the audience for music games. Co-founder Kai Huangsaid that music games are “not a fad”, and that what the company has achieved so far is just “the beginning of a huge category.”
Check out some of the announced tracks for Guitar Hero: Smash Hits after the jump:
For the very first time, the entire Beatles’catalog has been digitally remastered and will be released on September 9. The entire catalog will be available for sale in stereo or in mono formats. The remastered albums will be also available to buy either individually or in a box set. The albums will include original artwork and track listings. The release of the remastered CDs will coincide with the release of “The Beatles: Rock Band“.
Online social networking site Myspace, has launched a karaoke service in Japan, expanding its musical reach to the nation loaded with lovers of the sing-along entertainment. MySpace Karaoke has logged more than eight million visitors since it launched in May of last year in Canada and the United States, and lets users post videos of themselves singing on the site.
“If you had told me years ago we would launch an online karaoke site in Japan, I would have told you it is like selling ice to the Eskimos,” said MySpace Karaoke general manager Nimrod Lev. “Boy was I wrong. It seems like the land of karaoke has nothing even close to that. We met with all the leading companies there and they loved what they saw.”
The Beatles (or what remains of them), in their first move ever to embrace new technology, came to an agreement with MTV Games to be the stars of the next Rock Band last October. No further announcements had been made until now, when a press release from MTV Games, the designer, was released today stating that the game will be released for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii on September 9, 2009, a date easily remembered by pretty much anyone. The game will take players through the career of the Beatles, from Liverpool to the world’s biggest stages.
Electronic Arts, video game publisher of popular titles like The Sims and Spore, is currently helping MTV distribute the music video game Rock Band, but at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, EA’s Chief Operating Officer John Pleasants indicated that the company might be developing a their own music game in the near future by commenting:
“There are lots of other things you can do with music, and we’re working on interesting things, and we know our competition is working on interesting things.”
Toyota Scion promotes metal bands, Death Row Records gets bought up by Canadian firm WIDEawake Entertainment, Fender studies say music games encourage kids towards wanting to play real instruments. Check out today’s Round Up!
Scion is endorsing a series of free live concerts featuring big names Pig Destroyer, Neurosis, Trash Talk and Mastodon. The first will be in Los Angeles on February 4th, and the second in Atlanta on the 20th. The line-ups will make your jaw go slack. [Prefix]
Death Row Records, declared bankrupt in 2006, has been snapped up at auction price by WIDEawake Entertainment Group, a young Toronto-based firm. Although some of the involved parties weren’t happy with the proceedings, in the end $18 million was the price paid. It’s an impressive quantity, but quite a bargain for Death Row’s mythical catalogue of Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. [LATimes]
A recent press release reports that a November 2008 informal survey, conducted by Fender and music education organization Little Kids Rock, shows a direct correlation between playing ‘Rock Band‘ and ‘Guitar Hero‘ games and kids being motivated to take up real instruments. While the report is buoyant for the instrument and game industries, parents can expect a return of the popular “it’s educational!” excuse. [MTV Multiplayer]
