Remember when Nick was talking a bunch of shit about how he was like the world's greatest at Standard Keys in Rock Band 3? Yeah, don't mess with him. When Nick talks shit you better believe it. He doesn't talk shit very often.
So now I'm stuck waiting around for Rock Band 4's cowbell peripheral. I know I won't be top of the drums, guitar or keyboard leaderboards anytime soon. Vocals? HAHA!
It looks like I won't be able to dominate with my plastic cowbell anytime soon though as Rock Band 4 won't be appearing at retail this year. Speaking with Game Informer, Harmonix VP of Strategy and Business Chris Rigopulos said that the developer will still be generating DLC content for the Rock Band Music Store:
Comparing profitability of discs vs DLC is really an apples-to-oranges thing. Ideally, they should be complementary parts of the whole. DLC represents an ongoing opportunity to improve the economics of the disc release. This is substantial enough in our case that it might affect how we think about our retail strategy. For example, the price for Rock Band 3 was recently reduced to $19.99. A price cut like that has much more compelling economics when you consider that each unit sold represents the potential creation of a new DLC customer. For all of these reasons, we're not planning a Rock Band 4 disc release in 2011.
If DLC is such a compelling strategy for Harmonix to pursue, you can bet that the downloadable side of Rock Band is moving strong. In fact, the Rock Band store recently surpassed 100 million song downloads. Big names like Ozzy Osbourne, Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga, and Peter Frampton will be coming to the service in May too. As a newly independent developer, Harmonix is pretty pleased:
I should probably take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to all of our fans who have propelled us to these heights and to all of the artists whose music lies at the heart of the Rock Band experience. Rock Band 3 is a big game with lots of available music content and lots of new goals and challenges. We want to give our fans the time to explore that fully. But rest assured that Harmonix is still developing new ideas and concepts to advance the Rock Band franchise, and we look forward to sharing those when the time is right.
You know, a lot of companies find the right time to announce their games at E3. E3 2011 is coming up soon so stick with Game Revolution and we'll get you all the latest news leading up to and throughout the biggest conference in gaming.
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