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After announcing intentions to bring its Rock Band franchise to the Japanese market way back in the summer of 2008, Harmonix and co-developer Q Entertainment quietly walked away from the project. "Never say never," Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos said of the project in a group interview session this week at Tokyo Game Show, answering a question asked by Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft. "We were very much interested in bringing that experience in some form to the Japanese market," he explained. "There were a couple of significant challenges."

Beyond the whole "manufacturing and shipping hundreds of thousands more plastic peripherals to an island country" ... thing, Rigopulos lamented issues with licensing Japanese music for the game, which he characterized as "very difficult in Japan, relative to other countries." He also pointed to a rather obvious concern: space limitations in Japanese households. "Even for people who have the space, Japanese families tend to not make a lot of noise in their homes. They generally have a quieter lifestyle at home 'cause they're living in closer quarters, and also Japanese families don't entertain in their homes as much."

Given the original inspiration for Harmonix' franchises Guitar Hero and Rock Band was the arcade-born Guitar/Drum Freaks franchise, I wondered if Harmonix had looked at Japanese arcades as an option instead of a home console release. "That's something we considered," he admitted. "One of the challenges is that arcades are very, very noisy, and so if you're trying to make something that's really a musical experience and you've got 37 other arcade machines all turned up to full volume, it kind of impairs the musicality of the experience."

Again, Rigopulos said Harmonix has yet to give up on the concept of Rock Band in Japan, but from the sound of things, it's not exactly at the top of his priority list.

[Image credit: ShonenKnife.com]

#harmonixmusicsystems A few years back, Rock Band exploded in North America. In Europe. In Australia. It didn't in Japan. There must be a reason for that. More »

#gamingappoftheday VidRhythm isn't a game per se; it's an app that allows users to quickly assemble custom-made music videos. But given that it's made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we're gonna go ahead and call it a game just so we can write about it. One of my favorite things about the Rock Band games was how it allowed musicians and non-musicians alike to share music in a new way. There was nothing quite like sitting down with my non-musician friends and sharing music in a new way. VidRhythm offers an evolution of that same inclusive spirit, and opens musical performance up to an ever greater audience. More »

#review With Guitar Hero on extended leave and no new Rock Band title coming out this year, now is the perfect time to trade in our toy guitars for something a bit more substantial. Going from five colorful plastic buttons for six strings with 22 frets each is a daunting task however, especially when music games have trained you to respond to visual cues to guide your playing; you see a green circle, you hold down the corresponding button and strum. A regular guitar won't flash little circles in front your eyes to help you hit the right notes. More »

The following tracks were hunted down by sleuths searching around the seedy underbelly of the official Rock Band website. These aren’t confirmed by Harmonix just yet, but we’ll keep an eye out for them anyway. The Band – The Weight (Live) Grand Funk Railroad – The Loco-Motion Fleetwood Mac – Dreams Mastodon – Blood & Thunder Foo Fighters – [...]

#music Rock Band is on hiatus. Guitar Hero is taking a long sleep. In short, the "expensive plastic instrument" music game bubble has finally burst. Which isn't stopping Ubisoft from releasing one! More »

Rock Band DLC Additions for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii After selling more than 100 million albums and singles worldwide, Depeche Mode is the most successful electronic band in music history, and next week, they’ll be bringing three of their fan-favorites to Rock Band 3. Depeche Mode Pack 01 will include “Never Let Me Down Again” [...]

#harmonix Even though their biggest competitor in the rhythm video game genre is now essentially dead, the people who started the Guitar Hero franchise say they were saddened to hear that Activision had put the seminal music game to sleep. More »

#rockband3 The hardware that can turn real instruments, from guitars to drums to keyboards, into Rock Band 3 controllers arrived a little later than some rhythm game fans were hoping for. And Mad Catz is sorry about that. More »

#music I haven't played guitar since university, and haven't done science since high school, so the particulars of this are lost on me. What I do know, though, is that rigging up a real electric guitar to play Rock Band is awesome. More »

Cambridge, Mass. – Jan. 7, 2011– Harmonix today announced that Linkin Park will bring a six pack of songs to Rock Band, available beginning Jan. 11 in the Rock Band 3 Music Store of downloadable content for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Wii™. Rock Band [...]

#harmonix The people who make Rock Band and the breakout Kinect dancing game Dance Central have been sold by MTV's parent company Viacom. But they can keep making sequels to those series, if they want to. More »

#legal A group of former shareholders in Rock Band developers Harmonix - including company CEO Alex Rigopulos and his co-founder Eran Egozy - are suing parent company Viacom, amid claims massive bonus payments are being avoided. More »

#kinect The current "plastic instruments" phase of the music game scene seems to have run its course. Next up must surely be the genre's logical conclusion: Air Guitar Hero. More »

Building on 2009's initial offering, Rock Band Reloaded ($4.99 on iPhone/iPod Touch; $9.99 on iPad) adds a new expert mode and full vocal support in the sequel. Just promise us you won't be that guy on the bus, okay?

The iPad version of the game supports split-screen multiplayer, along with several different ways to present the action on screen -- lefties can orient gameplay so and there's even a full-screen drum kit to fool around with. For the full list of launch tracks, as well as free and premium tracks accessible through the App store and the game itself, dive on past the break.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello revealed a core attribute that the megapublisher is prioritizing in the coming years: Thriftiness. He explained the company has no interest in pursuing more multi-million dollar acquisitions for now -- rather, he said the company will focus on better integrating some of the major casual game developers it acquired over the past year, including Playfish, the Facebook game developer EA bought out for $300 million (with $100 million in potential bonuses) last November.

When pressed on whether the publisher was considering purchasing the recently let-go Rock Band developer Harmonix, Riccitiello responded that such an acquisition would "look like I'm doubling down on yesterday." He added, "I'm sure some smart investor will buy the business feeling that they can catch a falling knife, but more people have been cut trying to catch falling knives than have benefitted from getting the timing exactly right." That seems awfully harsh, but we suppose it's not quite as harsh as if EA were to buy the developer then dissolve it a few years later.

Coming from the Rock Band fourms… Sorry for the last minute notice, but we just got word from the Audio team that Snoop Dogg’s track Upside Ya Head will no longer be available for download. Because this song was available in the Snoop Dogg Pack 01, the offer for the pack will be coming down as [...]

#harmonix Viacom, like any good media conglomerate, loves big margins... and it can not lie, you other investors can't deny that when a subsidiary walks in with itty bitty net earnings you've got to sell it... More »

#industry Viacom today said they plan to sell the company behind Rock Band, Kinect's Dance Central and the original Guitar Hero. More »

#review Power Gig: Rise of the SixString strives to bridge the gap between pretending to play guitar and playing guitar with a game backed by a instrument manufacturer and an impressive list of previously reticent artists. More »

Band to set Guinness World Record (Gamer's Edition) for longest relay Rock Band concert.