The Beatles: Rock Band Message Board older than one year ago

The Beatles: Rock Band will get a hot DLC injection tomorrow when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band releases as downloadable content. In preparation for the arrival of these new tracks, MTV has passed along the above trailer which offers a brief sample of new tracks in the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album mixed together with some found on the disc. In the end, the video saves us all precious time we would've had to use sampling tracks on YouTube and, inevitably, watching Pomplamoose videos.

New DLC arrives and now you can play song from the entire Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Get ready to rock out to more classic songs.

Second downloadable album coming for The Beatles: Rock Band.

In a move no doubt inspired by the Movember Movement, Harmonix and MTV Games have revealed that the second DLC album for The Beatles: Rock Band, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, will release the week of November 17. Tracks from the British sensation's eighth studio album, as featured in the DLC release, include: "Fixing A Hole" "She's Leaving Home" "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!" "Within You Without You" "When I'm Sixty-Four" "Lovely Rita" "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" "A Day In The Life." Xbox 360 and Wii owners can purchase the DLC on Tuesday, November 17. The tracks will be available as a complete Track Pack for 1080 ($13.50) or 160 ($2.00) individually on Xbox 360; and 200 Wii Points ($2.00) per track on Wii. PlayStation 3 players get a few extra days to grow out their glorious mustaches when the pack lands on PSN on Thursday, November 19 for $13.49 (or $1.99 per track).As previously revealed, Beatles fans can look forward to next month when 1965's Rubber Soul will become available as the game's third full-album DLC.

European owners of the PS3 version of The Beatles: Rock Band who decided to purchase the "Abbey Road" DLC are having an awfully difficult time coming together. A lengthy forum thread on the Rock Band message board tells of the woes of a number of overseas faux-rockers who, after downloading the content on their PS3, have lost the ability to access any of the game's online modes. A Harmonix developer responded to the complaints, asking for the specific circumstances of these server crashes and promising that the Beatles team is "investigating this issue to try to find out what's going on." That is to say, the Beatles: Rock Band development team -- not the Beatles themselves. We imagine they're a little too busy for this kind of thing. Update: A Harmonix representative just emailed us the news that this bug has been squashed. European PS3-owning DLC-purchasing Beatles: Rock Band players, you may now return to your regularly scheduled rocking.

European owners of the PS3 version of The Beatles: Rock Band who decided to purchase the "Abbey Road" DLC are having an awfully difficult time coming together. A lengthy forum thread on the Rock Band message board tells of the woes of a number of overseas faux-rockers who, after downloading the content on their PS3, have lost the ability to access any of the game's online modes. A Harmonix developer responded to the complaints, asking for the specific circumstances of these server crashes and promising that the Beatles team is "investigating this issue to try to find out what's going on." That is to say, the Beatles: Rock Band development team -- not the Beatles themselves. We imagine they're a little too busy for this kind of thing.

Even though John, Paul, George and Ringo have been rocking the disc tray of your favorite console with The Beatles: Rock Band, its expectation-exceeding sales haven't helped boost overall Rock Band sales. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman told USA Today the "economics of our Rock Band franchise are improving, though not as quickly as we'd like." There's still hope that Rock Band could at least break even or show a small profit, though Viacom CFO Tom Dooley said that will depend entirely on the franchise's performance this holiday season.Despite tanking sales, the music genre still remains one of the best in the industry and The Beatles: Rock Band shows us that the right approach could still determine financial success in the space. Its September debut was very fortuitous and it even managed to best Guitar Hero 5 in the US -- which not only came with a free game, but is also one of the most recognizable brands to the mainstream. Source - USA Today Source - Viacom earnings report

Discover the new downloadable Rock Band tracks.

Abbey Road is to be The Beatles Rock Band's first DLC album.

For those of you ready to Carry That Weight and swing Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Harmonix and MTV Games released the full "Abbey Road" album download today for The Beatles: Rock Band. Rather than simply release the songs, the DLC comes with new animations for the four British gents and, in some cases, new "dreamscapes" (the pseudo-psychedelic animations tripping our your friends while you play songs). The trailer above offers a medley sampling of the whole album, should you not be acquainted with it. But then, we must ask, what planet are you from where "Abbey Road" is an unfamiliar album?

The Beatles: Rock Band's initial U.S. tour at retail has proven boast-worthy for its promoters. Following two promising platform appearances in NPD's top 10 software sales chart for September, MTV Games and Harmonix have declared B:RB "the top selling music video game in the U.S. for September." The Beatles-only game (released September 9) outsold Guitar Hero 5 (released September 1) with 595,000 units to 499,000 units in total U.S. sales for the month, according to IndustryGamers. Additionally, charity-driven purchases of the "All You Need Is Love" DLC track exceeded 100,000 downloads on Xbox 360 in September.The makers of B:RB have also rubbed in a few seemingly noteworthy facts; namely, (1) U.S. purchases of GH5 in September were eligible for a free mail-away copy of Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and (2) GH5 is available on one additional platform, PS2. Of course, Van Halen isn't exactly the American equivalent of The Beatles, and the PS2 is no longer the dominant platform to stage one's acts upon. Still, despite the staggering odds stacked against its success, B:RB managed to capture the mindshare of U.S. gamers. (And we all know that Americans like to speak their minds with their monies.)The sales de-feat must feel good for MTV Games and Harmonix -- what with B:RB being burned in the sales competition with GH5 by the kingdom that birthed the band (see: Chart-Track UK September sales rankings posted after the break). What was it? Right: Guitar Hero 5 supposedly outsold The Beatles: Rock Band "2-to-1 in the UK." So, score a victory for B:RB in the battle of the bands fought in U.S. retail last month. But let's not forget there's a bigger, "World War of Rock" being waged, as well. And our wallets are the oft-unreported collateral damage.

The results are in, and the first round goes to Harmonix.

The new, lighter (in both price and weight!) PS3 continues to enjoy renewed sales in its second month, once again beating out every console except for the invincible DS -- and the PS3 got pretty close to that impossible victory. The PS3's sales more than doubled in the last month! In fact, just about everything enjoyed a boost in September, with all the home consoles benefiting from recent price drops, and the PSP launching new hardware (NPD's September sales period ran through October 3). The only "loser" is the DS, which fell in total sales, but still managed to sell more than anything else.In software (see the chart after the break), unsurprisingly strong debuts took place for both games with Halo on the box and games with Mario on the box. In fact, strong is a bit of an understatement for ODST's 1.52 million units sold. It's not quite 3.3 million units, but for a presumably lower-cost spinoff using an existing engine, it'll do. In a weird bit of cross-platform fickleness, The Beatles: Rock Band debuted in the top 10 for Xbox and Wii, but not PS3 -- while Batman: Arkham Asylum's PS3 version made a second appearance in the top 10 to the exclusion of the Xbox.-DS: 524K29K (-5%)-PS3: 492K282K (+134%)-Wii: 463K186K (+67%)-360: 353K138K (+64%)-PSP: 190K50K (+36%)-PS2: 146K40K (+38%)Check out the software sales chart after the break.

The Beatles: Rock Band will have the entire Abbey Road album available for download this Tuesday on Xbox 360 and Wii, followed by PS3 on Thursday. The full album won't be lonely for long, as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will arrive in November, with Rubber Soul walking onto the scene in December. The full Abbey Road DLC setlist and pricing details can be found after the break.

"Complete The Album Pack" revealed, only select individual tracks available for sale.

"Complete The Album Pack" revealed, only select individual tracks available for sale.

We're gonna need a montage.

Come together and listen in on every song from the new downloadable content.

You're undoubtedly familiar with our Rock Band Weekly feature. Harmonix has been able to produce weekly DLC for the Rock Band franchise across nearly every platform it graces, so it came as a surprise when we discovered the studio's hesitant attitude towards The Beatles. While three albums are already in the works as DLC, Harmonix representative John Drake told The BBPS that future releases are entirely dependent on sales of the initial batch of DLC. His explanation? "It costs thousands of dollars" to produce the DLC. "It's not like Rock Band where we wait for the masters to come in and just author them ... its like, send people to Abbey Road, use the original tape, separate them out," Drake detailed. In addition to the audio work that must be done, Harmonix has also promised to include original dreamscapes for future downloadable content as well. It seems likely Harmonix will find the sales necessary to produce more DLC, considering the retail success of the game so far. "If they sell well, we'll have a lot more content," Drake promises.

We were just as perplexed as anyone when Guitar Hero 5 trounced The Beatles: Rock Band in the UK -- where we hear the Fab Four is fairly popular still. Thankfully, Activision's Guitar Hero business CEO, Rock 'n' Roll Dan Rosensweig, is there to explain it all. "The number one thing about Guitar Hero is that it's fun as hell -- it's focused on the guitar, and the variety and value proposition -- and the reviews are spectacular. So I guess we're the only ones not surprised." Rosensweig went on to tell GamesIndustry.biz that "internally we always talked about the Fab Five - Guitar Hero 5 - was going to beat the Fab Four." So, we've also discovered Activision's real secret weapon that keeps it ahead of the competition: Hilarious wordplay.

The Beatles: Rock Band SingStar bundle has arrived at UK retailers for £49.99 ($81.87). Only after being half-announced by MTV Games, showing up on an Australian retailer website, and then vaguely detailed in a press release from today, are we able to bring you this news. Is it coming to other territories? That's a good question! We asked EA, who gave us a laundry list of launch dates for various European and African countries (listed after the break). Unfortunately, we were told that the exclusion of North America from the list means that the publisher currently has no intention of bringing the microphone bundle Stateside. Sorry, aspiring North American crooners!

A portion of an Aeropause review… …if you are looking for a way to engage the whole family in a cooperative experience, swing out and pick up a copy of Rock Band with the full peripherals and start your own version of the Partridge Family. I know that even as my kids age this is one [...]

Microsoft has announced that "All You Need is Love," the first downloadable song for The Beatles: Rock Band, became the fastest-selling tune in the franchise's history within the first two days of availability. We'd like to believe that the Xbox-exclusive track was entirely propelled by the spirit of philanthropy, with proceeds from sales ("tens of thousands of dollars," Microsoft says) benefiting Doctors Without Borders, but its success probably comes from the fact that it's "All You Need is Love." By The Beatles.A limited edition Beatles-themed Xbox 360, bearing artwork from the game's introduction video, was also sold by Microsoft during an online charity auction. After ten days, the system took off for $17,300. If you've yet to expand the legendary band's in-game lineup or hope to gain entry in the on-going Beatles sweepstakes, keep in mind that revenue from "All You Need is Love" is still going to charity. All you need is 160.

First, we heard that The Beatles: Rock Band would be released as a SingStar PS3 game with all the non-singing gameplay removed. Then Harmonix told Joystiq that it was just a potential microphone bundle for Rock Band, marketed at the SingStar-loving PAL audience.The real bundle, as revealed by Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi, is somewhere in between, though the corrected Harmonix story was way more accurate. It's a regular copy of The Beatles: Rock Band and two SingStar mics, in a big SingStar package. JB Hi-Fi states that it will be out September 24 for $99 AUD ($86.61 US), and we have yet to see it pop up on any other retailer sites, so we don't know if it's PALexclusive or Australia exclusive, or where it'll be out. We'll check with Sony.[Via Kotaku]

When Viacom's CEO, Philippe Dauman, says that The Beatles: Rock Band sales have "exceeded internal expectations," we have to imagine that he doesn't have his top expectations men on the job. If we had been asked for our expectations of a game featuring the most popular band of all time, we would have simply pointed toward www.mythirdyacht.com and been on our way. What's actually a surprise from an IndustryGamers report on the matter is that even in our crummy economy, it's the $250 version of the game -- bundled with all the instruments -- that's performing so well that Dauman says he expects a sellout by November.

Despite how some musicians feel about music 'n' rhythm games, Pink Floyd drummer (and part-time T-Zero agent) Nick Mason isn't entirely ruling it out for his band. With The Beatles: Rock Band having just released, the BBC asked him if we could be seeing a Pink Floyd Rock Band or Guitar Hero game, to which he replied, "I think we'd consider it." While he isn't a big supporter of the genre (he thinks it deters kids from learning real instruments, just like other celebs do), he did add, "Everyone's looking at new ways of selling the music because the business of selling records has almost disappeared." Especially those vinyl ones, which (gasp!) weren't even interactive.