The conference call about Rock Band this morning was frustratingly vague--lots of "we can't comment on that yet"s--but it did offer up a few more nuggets of info about the game that weren't covered in the earlier announcement.
Thanks to Harmonix's relationship with MTV, you won't be playing cover versions anymore, you'll be strumming along to the real thing. No word on what bands we be represented, or even how many songs will be available from the start, but Harmonix's Alex Rigopulos did say that their plans for the online library of downloadable music were "ambitious." He went on to say that the full spectrum of rock music will be represented, including every sub-genre you can think of, like punk, metal, southern rock, classic, modern, and so forth.
Alex also mentioned that players would be able to go online and compete against other bands, but was hush about whether or not there would be any kind of camera support or leader boards. He did say that they've found a brilliant solution to any kind of latency issues, so jamming online with your pals won't be a study in frustration and missed drum cues. Harmonix is also "looking very carefully" at the significance of user-created content. How hot would it be if you could create your own tracks for people to play along to?
If you're wondering just how this behemoth of a game is going to be packaged, keep wondering. They're "examining all their options" as to how the various peripherals will be bundled, assuming they are going to be bundled at all. Alex assured us that the drum peripheral "doesn't feel like a toy," and that we'll be quite satisfied with it. Red Octane and The
Ant Commandos will no longer be making the guitars.
Rock Band will be out for PS3 and 360 this holiday season, and quite probably the Wii sometime after that. Again, there was a whole lotta hemming and hawing, but if you read between the noncommittal noises, they pretty much confirmed that there would be a Wii version at some point.
So, long story short: Rock Band is going to be ten different kinds of awesome.
