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Rock Band on PS2 and Wii to get 20 new songs in expansion pack

What sets Rock Band apart from its competitors is that it pushes itself as a music delivery platform rather than just a yearly, episodic update like any other franchise title.

While it might not yet have the brand power of Guitar Hero, Rock Band is selling well enough for Viacom (parent company of MTV and Harmonix) to point out that its music game has shipped more than 3 million bundle units over the three currently available SKUs.

Over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, more than 10 million songs have been purchased and downloaded from each console’s respective online portal.

PlayStation 2 gamers, and the eventual owners of the upcoming Wii version, don’t have the standard storage infrastructure to download songs online. Harmonix, MTV Games and EA announced today an alternative solution for PS2 and Wii to get more Rock Band content.

Coming on July 15 will be Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1 for Wii and PS2. The $29.99 expansion disc will include 20 songs, some of which from Boston, Oasis, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and All American Rejects. For a full track list, see the Rock Band forum post.

As reported by GameDaily, Viacom said in its first quarter earnings statement, “Media Networks revenues rose 16% to $2.02 billion, principally driven by strong sales of the music video game Rock Band.”

“Our Rock Band video game is continuing its successful tour and is emerging as a valuable long-term franchise. We expect to further that success with the upcoming release of Rock Band on the Wii home video game system and our launch in Europe,” commented Philippe Dauman, president and CEO of Viacom.

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$1.50 per song?
By BMFPitt on 5/5/2008 2:56:21 PM , Rating: 5
That might be fine if you were buying singles or 3-packs, but $30 for 20 sounds a bit high to me.




RE: $1.50 per song?
By wushuktl on 5/5/2008 3:02:39 PM , Rating: 5
you're not paying for the song itself but for the work that went into breaking it down and making a game out of it. this is in no way comparable to buying a song on itunes. i think $1.50 a song is just fine


RE: $1.50 per song?
By Drexial on 5/5/08, Rating: 0
RE: $1.50 per song?
By nolisi on 5/5/2008 5:58:44 PM , Rating: 2
Which songs did you sing that had wrong lyrics? I own it and play it almost daily, and have completed every song (along with 15+ downloaded tracks) at least three times over. I can't think of one that contained any wrong lyric.

Now, I can't say that I was intimately familiar with every song in RB prior to playing the game, but I did know the vast majority of the songs pretty well, and I enjoy reading/taking apart/analyzing lyrics. I'm very familiar with rock 80's to recentstuff , but I'm definitely not as well versed with classic rock as I could be, although I've always listened to Boston, The Who, BOC, as well as CCR.

I admit there's probably some hole in my knowledge or there's just something I haven't noticed.


RE: $1.50 per song?
By Drexial on 5/6/2008 10:09:17 PM , Rating: 2
the one the really stick out is Nirvana In bloom. The line in the song is "and he don't know what it means, don't know what it means" in rock band they have him saying "knows not what it means"

are they trying to correct his grammar?

If you'll even read this its doubtful....


RE: $1.50 per song?
By Penth on 5/6/2008 10:23:49 PM , Rating: 2
Are you saying throughout the whole song it is supposed to be "and he don't know what it means" or like they say it like that one time? I'm listening to the song now and he for sure says knows not what it means most of the time. I heard one that could maybe be "but he don't know what it means" but it's hard to tell for sure.


RE: $1.50 per song?
By Drexial on 5/6/2008 10:27:09 PM , Rating: 2
wow.... ummmm I take it back. Apparently I'm a moron.... Id like to publicly announce how retarded I am. when I listened to the song ages ago I clearly heard him say Don't know what it means and just assumed he was muffled when he said it the other times. But apparently I was wrong.....


RE: $1.50 per song?
By therealnickdanger on 5/5/2008 3:32:30 PM , Rating: 2
Sure, I wish it was less per song, but with $1.00 being the going rate for MP3s, it's not too unreasonable to expect $0.50-$1.00 extra for the development time and costs involved with each track. As I posted elsewhere, I've spent nearly $70 on downloadable tracks. Why? Because they are fun songs to play at parties and get people in a fun mood. No regrets here.


RE: $1.50 per song?
By omnicronx on 5/5/2008 3:20:35 PM , Rating: 2
Why not? People already pay that over Xbox live. I won't buy, you may not buy it, but an avid rock band gamer probably will. There are a lot more than you would think..


RE: $1.50 per song?
By Houdani on 5/5/2008 8:38:58 PM , Rating: 2
A buck fiddy is a discount compared to what our high-def brothers pay for downloading singles, but as it is there are only five or so songs which interest me in this song pack, so I'm not likely to pay more than $10-15 for it.

Perhaps a better route would have been to release several 20-up song packs, each with a coherent theme (classics, 80's, 90's, pop, hair metal, grunge, whatever) to make them a more compelling purchase. I'd be much more inclined to drop $30 on themed packs knowing that the bulk of the songs are in my preferred genre(s).


Wii d/l content
By overzealot on 5/5/2008 3:32:21 PM , Rating: 2
Why couldn't they use the SDcard slot for downloadable content... surely they wouldn't need more than 4gb?
They could probably have included a 512mb (or maybe 1gb) one with the game, for minimal additional cost, and have enough space for everything they're going to release online.




RE: Wii d/l content
By Dabruuzer on 5/5/2008 4:03:45 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly what I was wondering. You can get 2GB SD cards for under $15 now, so the only reason to NOT go this route is greed, perhaps?


RE: Wii d/l content
By HelToupee on 5/5/2008 4:32:30 PM , Rating: 2
Biggest Wii can read is 2, I believe. Still, you have a VERY valid point.

WTF, Nintendo? You keep leaving all this money on the table. Are you rich enough already?


RE: Wii d/l content
By Murst on 5/5/2008 6:12:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Why couldn't they use the SDcard slot for downloadable content

If they allowed the songs to be stored on removable media, it would be easier for people to transfer them from one place to another. My guess is that they're doing this to limit the duplication of the songs.

Also, did you notice how the install files delete themselves from the hard drive after you install them? (at least on the PS3 they do).


RE: Wii d/l content
By oab on 5/5/2008 11:07:12 PM , Rating: 2
And using a disk is MUCH harder to transfer from one place to another. 'sif pretending mod chips don't exist.


RE: Wii d/l content
By Fallen Kell on 5/6/2008 12:47:05 AM , Rating: 2
Well, it is a LOT harder to transfer the hard drives, actually, I think it isn't even possible, because the hard drives get formated/keyed to a specific SN for the console, and I believe you would need to wipe the drive for it to work on an unmodded system. Yes, chip'ed consoles will be able to get around this, but lets face it here, chip'ed consoles are only a fraction of the amount of systems out there, especially with MS's agressive stances on finding chip'ed consoles if you want Live support (which means, no download content or online Rock Band for you, which is really the big point).

I mean, anymore someone's grandmother could transfer a SD card from one Wii to another... That same person might not know how to deal with something more complex...


Party machine.
By therealnickdanger on 5/5/2008 2:55:55 PM , Rating: 3
I have personally purchased ~35 tracks over Live, which is way more than I ever expected to, but it's been worth every penny. Beer + Rock Band = great parties.




RE: Party machine.
By HelToupee on 5/5/2008 4:35:21 PM , Rating: 2
That's why my favorite 'instrument' is the microphone. I can play it and not even have to set my beer down.


RE: Party machine.
By Murst on 5/5/2008 6:16:09 PM , Rating: 2
I'm almost at 100 songs (in total) in Rock Band now w/ all the downloaded content.

They really need to come up w/ a way to better select the songs during quickplay though. Scrolling down past 90 songs is a pain (you should be able to page down). I realize you can reorder songs into different categories, but I have the song order pretty much memorized, and if I recategorized them, it'd probably take a lot longer to find the song I want.


RE: Party machine.
By therealnickdanger on 5/5/2008 11:41:03 PM , Rating: 2
I didn't even bother to unlock anything manually, I just have the 35 tracks I bought and then enter the cheat code to unlock all the other tracks.

R Y B R R B B R Y B

I just don't have time to unlock everything...


Ironic
By Freezetronius on 5/5/2008 3:42:32 PM , Rating: 1
I used to poo poo the very idea of Guitar Hero and Rock Band a few months ago. Then I downloaded the GH3 demo and started to enjoy it, even on a controller. Then I got GH3 for Valentines day and I loved it. Then my friend got Rock Band and we played for a night and I had more fun then I can remember in all my years of gaming.

Needless to say, Rock Band is now on my birthday list




RE: Ironic
By nolisi on 5/5/2008 6:03:16 PM , Rating: 2
It's funny- I saw the commercials for GH3 last year, and I didn't get what the idea behind the game was, and even after I started reading reviews, I still didn't get how that could be fun.

Then I played GH3 with a friend for the first time. It was really fun, but not enough to convince me as I'm more of a drummer at heart.

Then Rock Band was announced. I couldn't find a better reason to finally get the PS3 (at the time). For months now, it's been almost a nightly bit of entertainment for me and my girlfriend.