According to a report from Billboard, that service will launch sometime this year for the Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band, with plans to bring those “popular tracks” to the PlayStation 3 and Wii versions “eventually.” Artists can submit their songs to a group of “Harmonix-trained freelance game developers” who will prep the tracks for use in game.
Artists can price their songs between 50 cents and $US3, netting 30% of track sales. Rock Band owners will be able to preview Rock Band Network songs before they purchase.
MTV Games senior VP Paul DeGooyer says the Rock Band Network features a “set of serious professional tools to allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny with respect to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store.”
There’s a good reason the Rock Band Network will be initially available only to Xbox 360 users. Harmonix and MTV Games are relying on Microsoft’s Creators Club and the company’s XNA development platform to handle the transition from artist uploaded track to something that’s playable in Rock Band.
MTV To Launch New Track Upload Program For ‘Rock Band’ [Billboard]
Calvin Yio
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 3:56 PMwow this is cool does that mean there be other languages songs for rockband too?
Sinful Malice
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 6:07 PMAwesome, I’m guessing that the amount of songs available for download/purchase will increase exponentially for quite a while because of this.
Even if the songs aren’t “grand”, at least we have a lot of options. Kudos to Harmonix for still staying on top of the music game scene!
Goraxium
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 8:56 PMIt’s times like these I wish that they’d just release RB2 here so people wouldn’t have to import it…
Sinful Malice
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 4:59 AMActually, for New Zealanders, there is an alternative to importing RB2. Some guy in NZ has set up shop, doing all the hard work of importing for all NZers. http://www.firstgames.co.nz That’s how I got my copy ;)