MTV to launch Rock Band Network

360 News | Get your music into the game.

Earlier today Harmonix announced a new system called the Rock Band Network which will allow stakeholders in the music business - from the major record labels to the self-publishing independent artist - (not to mention the creative Rock Band players in-between) the opportunity to create and distribute their own Rock Band tracks.

MTV Games Senior Vice President, Paul DeGooyer explained the move in an article with Billboard

"We've figured out how to make it so anybody who owns and controls masters and publishing can put music into [Rock Band] at their own pace."

Potential track creators will need to be a member of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club Online, a service which carries a yearly subscription cost of around $100. The Rock Band Network will allow members to create their own tracks for Rock Band, upload them to be scanned through a peer review process, and then add the track to a download store which is separate from the official Rock Band store. There is also the opportunity for artists to make a quick buck with 30% of any track sales going back to their initial creator.

The system was initially designed with the indie artist in mind, though Harmonix now believes that the project has a much wider scope, which the company believes will also benefit the larger recording labels as well. Harmonix founder Alex Rigopulos. explained that the Rock Band Network could potentially see the amount of new music to come to the game increase dramatically compared to the current statistics, which see the Harmonix team push out roughly ten new tracks for Rock Band per week. Rigopulos further explained the capabilities of the Network, stating:

"Once we flip on the infrastructure, we can go from a few dozen people capable of doing this work to hundreds of people or more. We can ramp up by a factor of 10 or more the rate of production of content."

The Rock Band Network is set to launch later in 2009, though the creation tools will be available for budding song makers to tinker with sometime in August. For more information on the Network, head on over to the official preview site.

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22 Comments

Nic_231

2 years ago

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

piguma

2 years ago

Rock band simply does not deserve to sell well at all here in Australia.
The distribution model for Australia is horrific.... it should never come to bear that we recived the original when the rest of the civilized world was recieving the sequel....
They should have not bothered - after all, they were releasing the FIRST rock band game here when the FOURTH GH game was being released (Thats not counting Aerosmith) - Harmonix shoulda cut their losses and accepted Australia as a Guitar Hero market, thanks to their distribution model

DancesInUnderwear

2 years ago

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

To be fair, Guitar Hero allows you to create and upload your own music, too. And you can download it for free. If GH allowed vocals, it would do everything this is planning on doing.

rufati

2 years ago

Cool idea, although I can't help but get the feeling that Harmonix can't be bothered cranking out the weekly DLC for much longer. What better way to ease the workload than by giving everyone else the tools they need to get the job done?

It's just a pity that anyone without a 360 doesn't get anything from this, but maybe now we'll see some more worthwhile songs come out.

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

Releasing a year-old product almost alongside the competition's latest entry is not the smartest thing to do. It didn't help that RB1 was also a fairly average game and not really any better than GH3 or WT. RB2 is a nice upgrade but then not everyone is willing/able to import, and if it doesn't roll out in Australia soon it's going to have GH5 to contend with.

Vervain

2 years ago

DancesInUnderwear wrote

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

To be fair, Guitar Hero allows you to create and upload your own music, too. And you can download it for free. If GH allowed vocals, it would do everything this is planning on doing.

This isn't aimed at players as much as actual bands who would be able to put their music on Rock Band at their own leisure and price it how they want.

Which should hopefully mean a lot more metal and indie bands will be putting their music up there.

Nic_231

2 years ago

DancesInUnderwear wrote

To be fair, Guitar Hero allows you to create and upload your own music, too. And you can download it for free. If GH allowed vocals, it would do everything this is planning on doing.

I read this as allowing people to actually record real instruments with proper equipment and then have them mapped to play in Rock Band. If so that would be miles ahead GH's track creation.

Eyce

2 years ago

DancesInUnderwear wrote

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

To be fair, Guitar Hero allows you to create and upload your own music, too. And you can download it for free. If GH allowed vocals, it would do everything this is planning on doing.

Except for you know, actual realistic sounding instruments and not horrible midi samples.

It'll be absolutely insane when this arrives, I don't think Harmonix would even worry about doing their own DLC anymore if it gets the support most are hoping it will get...

G3ck0

2 years ago

It sounds awesome, but will it be for the PS3 as well?

Eyce

2 years ago

Sambo110 wrote

It sounds awesome, but will it be for the PS3 as well?

creators.rockband.com wrote

Coming Soon - Use our tools to author playable tracks. Upload and submit your tracks for review by the Rock Band Creators community. Approved tracks become available in the Rock Band Store and on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace*, and you get a cut of every purchase.

*Select songs may also appear on PS3

As for the actual creation of songs, no, it appears to be a partnership with Microsoft's XNA Program.

MrAndyPuppy

2 years ago

Ummm... GH doesn't allow indie bands to sell their tracks and get actual, real $ for them. The Rock Band Network does. (that's besides the other comments already made about it being a real song that gets mapped instrument highways, rather than the MIDI style GH goes with).

Using XNA Creator Club to do part of the work is clever. XNA already allows for peer review for user generated/created content which would fairly quickly weed out people trying to own work that's not their own.

The downside for PS3 users* is that XNA is obviously Xbox 360 only, however, according to the release I got, Harmonix will re-release successful songs on the PSN (hence the footnote Eyce included above). They'll still be guaranteed to be exclusive on 360 for ~60 days, which obviously gives them time to figure out if it's selling well.

My hope is that some older groups resurrect their stuff through this channel as well as all the indie stuff we'll no doubt get.

* Ironically, while I work for Microsoft and am completely pumped that this is using XNA (which I talk to students about as part of my job), my copies of Rock Band 1/2 are for the PS3.

devonuto

2 years ago

piguma wrote

Rock band simply does not deserve to sell well at all here in Australia.

The distribution model for Australia is horrific.... it should never come to bear that we recived the original when the rest of the civilized world was recieving the sequel....

They should have not bothered - after all, they were releasing the FIRST rock band game here when the FOURTH GH game was being released (Thats not counting Aerosmith) - Harmonix shoulda cut their losses and accepted Australia as a Guitar Hero market, thanks to their distribution model

Harmonix made the first two Guitar Hero games...

G3ck0

2 years ago

And then sold it to some company to go and make (the awesome) Rock Band.

x7h3CUREx

2 years ago

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

instruments aside?? the rockband drums are far superior than world tours.
we don't even bother using the drums on world tour because you have to constantly repair them by shoving bits of cardboard into the cymbals or else they don't register hits.

but yeah, this is awesome news for rockband fans. me included. i hope it gets the support of some major labels and we see a huge influx of DLC.
it could potentially become a legitimate music sales measure in the same way that itunes has.

DancesInUnderwear

2 years ago

Yeah, I misread what this is. Sounds more interesting now that I get it. Ease up Rock Band fanboys*.

(*I'm one of you too)

1mpr3gn4t0r

2 years ago

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

I disagree - I hate how RB is DRMed and thus cripple its own game. I bought RB PAL here locally. I also bought RB2 US NTSC for my US 360. I also bought the transfer code, but I can't transfer the songs from my legit RB to be played via RB2 as advertised. Since I can't transfer the songs, I should be able to get my money back for the key, but I can't.

Eyce

2 years ago

1mpr3gn4t0r wrote

Nic_231 wrote

The superiority of Rock Band to Guitar Hero (instruments aside) never ceases to amaze me. What is amazing is that the sales don't reflect this.

It's your fault for assuming a PAL game will be read fine on a NTSC Console, far from "DRM'd" by Rock Band.

1mpr3gn4t0r

2 years ago

Eyce wrote

It's your fault for assuming a PAL game will be read fine on a NTSC Console, far from "DRM'd" by Rock Band.

I didn't assume anything. PAL game should read fine on a PAL machine. And the export code that I legitimately bought should work as advertised and export the songs, and it doesn't.

Nic_231

2 years ago

^ I imported a PAL copy of RB2 from the UK and my export code worked just fine.
The issue really doesn't classify as DRM its more about region locking.
Region locking is the choice of the console manufacturer, not the developers, so Rockband essentially has nothing to do with the problem.
Also when you say 'as advertised' did you check the fine print? I imagine there is something in there pertaining to DLC being incompatible between regions.

G3ck0

2 years ago

1mpr3gn4t0r wrote

Eyce wrote

It's your fault for assuming a PAL game will be read fine on a NTSC Console, far from "DRM'd" by Rock Band.

I didn't assume anything. PAL game should read fine on a PAL machine. And the export code that I legitimately bought should work as advertised and export the songs, and it doesn't.

That is NOT Rock Band's fault. NTSC DLC does not work with Pal games, period.

Vervain

2 years ago

Sambo110 wrote

That is NOT Rock Band's fault. NTSC DLC does not work with Pal games, period.

Actually on Xbox 360 NTSC DLC does work with Pal games and vice versa.

His problem is that he tried to use an unlock code from a region locked Pal game on a region locked NTSC game. Of course this isn't going to work as the code itself would be region locked.

Eyce

2 years ago

1mpr3gn4t0r wrote

Eyce wrote

It's your fault for assuming a PAL game will be read fine on a NTSC Console, far from "DRM'd" by Rock Band.

I didn't assume anything. PAL game should read fine on a PAL machine. And the export code that I legitimately bought should work as advertised and export the songs, and it doesn't.

Hang on, you have two 360's: A US 360 and an AU 360 yes?

If so, what console were you trying to export Rock Band 1 from?
this is confusing as all hell

What you could have a shot in doing is (by my understanding) export the PAL RB1 songs onto your PAL console, then transfer said song data over to the US 360. That being said you'll wouldn't be able to play your RB1 songs offline due to joyous Console locking of the DLC, but you'll at least be able to play the songs in Rock Band 2...

MrAndyPuppy

2 years ago

Nic_231 wrote

Region locking is the choice of the console manufacturer, not the developers, so Rockband essentially has nothing to do with the problem.

Actually, that's not true. Region locking can be done at various points. In the past, yes, it was the console manufacturer, but in this generation, Microsoft made the decision to allow individual publishers/developers to choose whether their games were region locked. EA games are the most commonly locked to a region (PAL vs NTSC-J vs NTSC-U so not a huge myriad of them) that I've encountered, while I have some Microsoft first party titles that are region-free and others that aren't.

For comparison, Sony decided that all games published on PS3 should be region-free, and Nintendo wanted to keep all games region-locked, so in the end you have three different implementations.

To complicate this, Sony's DLC is region-locked, as is Xbox 360 content, but in both cases if you can get it unlocked on your particular console, then it'll usually work on any account regardless of region (for example, I've purchased US content for both and had it work on PAL accounts). Gets a little confusing - there was one game (title escapes me) where the game was region-free, but the bonus movie DVD was region locked.

Also, because PS2 games were region locked, the PS3 implementation of PS2 is too - so my US and Japanese PS3's will not play any of my PAL PS2 games (big shame as I don't have an Aussie PS3, and I have 600+ PS2 games).

That said - I had exactly this problem with my PS3 version of Rock Band and ACDC. I have Rock Band as NTSC-U, and buy all my DLC from the US store. However, I bought Rock Band ACDC here in Australia and tried to use the code that came with the game to unlock the songs so they would be part of the collection. Didn't work unfortunately (as I discussed at the time in the Rock Band thread).

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