The rumors yesterday turned out true, apparently. Great news -- The Beatles music catalog has been licensed to MTV & Harmonix for use in the Rock Band series. The WSJ has stated that several people familiar with the matter have scheduled today's press conference to give the full details a 2pm this afternoon.

Harmonix today announced nine new tracks available for Rock Band in a downloadable pack. The pack features songs from The Offspring and George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today the addition of nine new tracks to the Rock Band® Music Store catalog of downloadable content. This week’s lineup includes a 3-pack from the legendary California punk rock band The Offspring, which features “Gone Away,” “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” and “Self Esteem.” The 3-pack joins previously released Rock Band downloadable track “Hammerhead” to make for a total of four Offspring tracks available in the Rock Band library of downloadable content.

Today EA and MTV Games announced a bit of a change in their Rock Band add-on availability. There will now be an AC/DC stand alone "track pack" for sale, but it will only be available at WalMart. Internationally, it will be sold all over, it seems. It looks like domestically, though, WalMart won EA over. Oh and Sam's Club too, WalMart's subsidiary. Hopefully the online site will not crash when it becomes available. Available November 2, $39.88 will be the retail price for PS3 and Xbox360, and PS2 will cost $29.88. A Wii edition will be available on November 16 for $39.88 as well. Sounds like EA is testing waters here, we will see how many sell.

No matter what, there will always be some measure of animosity between the Guitar Hero guys and the Rock Band team. It is just one of those things, folks. To that end, the devs at Guitar Hero, who are currently finalizing designing their drum peripheral, have called out Harmonix for their plan to release clip-on cymbals for Rock Band set-ups. Let the games begin, so to speak.

"I've a feeling there was a: 'Oh s***! There's cymbals! How can we put cymbals on our kit?' That would be the easiest way without having to rewire everything and re-engineer the entire circuit board."

EA and Harmonix have announced that there will be five Nine Inch Nails tracks available for Rock Band this week on both the PSN and Xbox Live Marketplace. Click read more for the track info and pricing.

PRESS RELEASE

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today the addition of Nine Inch Nails and Shinedown to the Rock Band™ Music Store catalog of downloadable content. Available July 22, the NIN three-pack includes the psychotic audio thrill ride "Burn” from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, “Capital G” from their conceptual fifth studio release Year Zero, and “Last” from the second studio release, EP Broken. Nine Inch Nails is the Grammy winning industrial rock act founded by producer, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, Trent Reznor more than 20 years ago with over 20 millions albums sold world wide. Each track will be available for $1.99 per track (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) or $5.49 (440 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for the three-pack.

Konami has apparently filed suit against Viacom, teh parent company of Harmonix, for their Rock Band game. Konami is claiming the game violates patents owned and used by Konami themselves in DDR. Sounds like a stretch to us, or a leverage tool to make sure that Konami is free and clear when they release their recently announced guitar based game.

Well, Harmonix is teaming up with Q Entertainment in Japan to bring the music game to the land of the Rising Sun. The game has apparently commanded sales of over 12 million downloaded songs. Impressive. The Japanese version of the game will, of course, feature localized song additions to the game's roster. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

CAMBRIDGE, Mass - June 2, 2008 – Harmonix Music Systems, the leading developer of music-based games, and MTV Games, a part of Viacom’s MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), announced today that they will team up with Q Entertainment, a leading Japanese music game designer, to bring the best-selling music videogame Rock Band to Japan. 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. The game will feature Japanese musical acts as well as other localized assets.

For those who are not aware, Rock bank recently got not only a release date in Europe, but a price as well. 240EU is the total for the entire instrument package. This is equivalent to about $375 USD as of today. Wow.

Well, Harmonix's Rob Kay has responded to criticisms over the European price point for Rock Band, telling Eurogamer: "We're not trying to rip anybody off." Kay went on to say he can see why consumers might be "a bit put off" by the price of Rock Band, but observed there is an option to buy just one instrument or a microphone separately. He added, "I firmly believe that if people do [buy it] they'll have an amazing experience they couldn't get anywhere else."

Hits from the popular band No Doubt and the lovely Gwen Stefani are now available for download for those who still play Rock Band. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

SANTA MONICA, CA – February 28, 2008 – Fans will now be able to shred to hits from No Doubt’s renowned album Tragic Kingdom with the release of a new downloadable track pack for Activision, Inc.’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

EA has confirmed that Rock Band for the Wii is on! Great news for Wii owners who missed out so far. The game shoudl be available towards the end of the year, the first half of fiscal 2009. More details to come, stay tuned.