Rumor has it that MTV has let the cat out of the bag by showing unannounced Rock Band tracks in a commercial promoting the newly released MTV2 track pack. An keen eyed poster on the Bemanistyle has posted stills from the commercial showing four unannounced tracks. The songs are:
• “Aesthetics of Hate” by Machine Head
• “Afterlife” by Avenged Sevenfold
• “Breed” by Nirvana
• “Burn” by Nine Inch Nails
I have put one of the stills after the jump. I’m pretty sure that this is real, but feel free to leave a comment if you disagree. Continued…
Word on the net is EA is planning on releasing a Rock Band 2 at some point. What evidence do we have? Other than Rock Band being one of the most lucrative games of last year, EA has been conducting surveys about Rock Band 2.
According to the survey, Rock Band 2 will be a full game, not just an expansion pack. It will make a leap in difficulty, much like Guitar Hero to Guitar Hero II. One of the questions dealt with pricing. Apparently EA is kicking around the idea of selling the full instrument package for $199, $169, or $149. The survey also asks what the chances are of buying Rock Band 2 over a similar game, aka Guitar Hero 4. Some other changes mentioned in the survey deal with an online version of World Tour mode, the ability to record music videos, a Battle of the Bands feature, and a drum trainer mode.
Now remember this is all rumors and speculation. All of this is subject to change. I personally did not take part in the survey, although I wish I had (EA feel free to email me).
Read: Survey hints at Rock Band 2 with online world tour, drum trainer.
A little while ago, I wrote up a news item about some cheap Rock Band downloadable songs. To be specific, I wrote about how songs by All American Reject, 30 Seconds To Mars and The Sounds were available to download for $0.99.
Today Xbox LIVE’s masters decided to change all that. If you were to go check out Xbox Live Marketplace right now, you would see that said songs are now $1.99. Now this isn’t really a big deal; I just wish that Harmonix would have announced that the $0.99 cost was temporary.
When asked about the pricing of future songs, an MTV/Harmonix spokesperson said that future $0.99 songs would probably “be the same situation, with the discounted price for a limited time.”
Let’s just hope that next time we get a little warning when songs are going to have a price hike.
Read: Cheaper indie Rock Band DLC raised to standard price.
Make sure to check out GGL’s new episode of Up All Night featuring Rock Band, as well.
As a very close follower of trends within the gaming media space, one particular interesting trend has stuck out to me over the past week: Kotaku, a property of the blog group Gawker Media, has gone out of their way to mention and include everything related to MTV. Now, it could be coincidence that MTV and its related media properties are particularly hot this week, but sometimes the phrase “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” comes out to actually be true.
Everyday this week there has been an increased focus on MTV and Viacom properties. With guest blogger and GameTrailers and Spike TV (both Viacom properties) correspondent Geoff Keighley taking guest editor duties all week, the co-branding is either a somewhat blatant advertising deal or an even bigger deal involving the potential sell of Gawker to Viacom — a company trying to increase its videogame presence more and more.
Continued…
Internet broadcast station eSportsTV has teamed up with XFire to broadcast its online events.
The deal includes video on demand content available only to XFire. First up: The Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Siege of September tournament starting Sept. 21 (today) and running until Sept. 28.
For more info, you can head over to esportstv.com and xfire.com.
