Rock Band: Official Thread Pt. 5
#955
to Judas Priest, not for me. I might get You've Got Another Thing Comin though.
to The Cars. Should be fun to sing some of these...My Best Friend's Girl, Good Times Roll, Just What I Needed.
to The Cars. Should be fun to sing some of these...My Best Friend's Girl, Good Times Roll, Just What I Needed.
#956
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Awesome! I love Judas Priest. I was just listening to that album the other day. I'll get that and the Cars. Now I don't have to put in GH:80's to play Electric Eye anymore. Don't care about the Pixies. I still want Who's Next though.
#957
DVD Talk Godfather
It's cool that there is some new* music coming. I'm not really interested in any of those bands but I may get You've Got Another Thing Comin'.
*new in regards to artists we haven't seen before. Then again it's always a good week when they abstain from the Police.
Speaking of new artists for the game, I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention Meat Loaf. Paradise by the Dashboard light would rock.
*new in regards to artists we haven't seen before. Then again it's always a good week when they abstain from the Police.
Speaking of new artists for the game, I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention Meat Loaf. Paradise by the Dashboard light would rock.
Last edited by Michael Corvin; 04-18-08 at 09:07 AM.
#959
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Thread Starter
A big to Judas Priest. This album is going to be really awesome for every instrument on just about every song.
Hopefully, they'll patch in a way to play full-album sets soon, as I'd love to play this one from beginning to end seamlessly.
Hopefully, they'll patch in a way to play full-album sets soon, as I'd love to play this one from beginning to end seamlessly.
#960
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OMG Doolittle...I've been itching for more Pixies since the game came out, and we're getting an entire album. Best announcement yet!
I'll probably get The Cars album too, there's some good stuff on there. Won't touch Judas Priest though.
I'll probably get The Cars album too, there's some good stuff on there. Won't touch Judas Priest though.
#962
Originally Posted by lotsofdvds
Just to expand on the original bit of news... the press release says The Cars in May and The Pixies in June.
#963
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Thread Starter
Today, Harmonix has officially announced the first album that will hit the Rock Band store: Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance. Arriving April 22/24 on Xbox 360/PS3, this10-track album will cost $14.99 with individual tracks being offered for $1.99 apiece. Then in May, The Cars' self-titled record will become the second full-album release from Rock Band. The Pixies' Doolittle will follow in June.
While this is precisely the news that all Rock Band fans have been waiting to hear, it raises a ton of new questions. Is $14.99 the new standard album price? And how often can we expect new albums? Luckily, we had the chance to discuss the announcement with Harmonix's CEO Alex Rigopulos, who was more than happy to answer all of our fanboy questions. We posted an abridged, cleaned (sans-Mark's-question-stuttering-and-boring-parts) Q&A after the jump.
What took you so long?
...a big reason that it's taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they're actually pretty complicated. You're often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that's not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital. And so for any one song, the actual process of finding the right tape, resuscitating it and transferring it to the right digital format that we need and all that is an undertaking...
If you're just going for a handful of tracks by a particular artist and they're slow to locate one of them, well you just pick a different track and go on. Well when you're looking for a dozen tracks ina a particular album, you cant really release the album until you've tracked every one of those assets.
What happened to The Who?
We will have a specific announcement about that coming up soon regarding some work that we have coming down the pike with The Who in general that I think people are gonna be pretty happy about...and in general what you're gonna see sorta deep dives with particular artists, where with some artists...of the appropriate stature, you'll see us doing more than whole albums, potentially even entire catalogs.
What kind of schedule will album release be on?
For album releases, in particular, there isn't a set schedule like an album a month...we do want to release albums regularly...generally, the amount of content we release in a week you'll see growing over the course of the year substantially.
Will albums ever represent the majority of your music releases?
I don't think albums will be the dominant release. I don't think we're going to switch to primarily releasing albums, but I will say, in addition to these three we've just mentioned, we actually have MANY in the pike...suffice it to say, it will be a substantial portion of our content offering going forward.
So is $14.99 the new standard album price?
It's not a standard. There's not going to be a standard album pricing. It's going to be a function of how many songs are included in the album...essentially there will be a volume discount applied.
Do you think a variable price rate on albums is disadvantage, especially when stores like iTunes sell albums for a flat rate?
Perhaps, but I think...consumers have demonstrated that they feel that the value they're getting for a game level based at $2 is enormous...[and] there's quite a lot of appetite for music at $2 a song...[so] volume discounts for more music represents quite a good value for the consumers.
Will you ever offer 3-Pack discounts for album tracks?
At this time we're not...I'm not ruling that out as something we're doing in the future. It's just not something we're doing right now.
Would you ever consider releasing "greatest hits" albums?
I don't see any particular reason why we would rule them out...I think that for the right artist under the right circumstances, there's no reason we wouldn't consider doing a greatest hits album that either exists in the world already as a recorded compilation, or [as] in some cases, we've actually had artists come to us who are interested in kind of curating their own new greatest hits compilation for the purpose of Rock Band release. And so I think we're really pretty versatile to ideas of that sort.
So basically, a Rock Band Greatest Hits album?
Exactly.
(Ed note: Rigopulos later explained that they kind of did this with Grateful Dead tracks already, unofficially.)
At the end of the interview, Rigopulos let me know that Rock Band had recently surpassed 8 million song downloads. That's about 2 million just since their new store opened (and Still Alive became offered for free).
While this is precisely the news that all Rock Band fans have been waiting to hear, it raises a ton of new questions. Is $14.99 the new standard album price? And how often can we expect new albums? Luckily, we had the chance to discuss the announcement with Harmonix's CEO Alex Rigopulos, who was more than happy to answer all of our fanboy questions. We posted an abridged, cleaned (sans-Mark's-question-stuttering-and-boring-parts) Q&A after the jump.
What took you so long?
...a big reason that it's taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they're actually pretty complicated. You're often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that's not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital. And so for any one song, the actual process of finding the right tape, resuscitating it and transferring it to the right digital format that we need and all that is an undertaking...
If you're just going for a handful of tracks by a particular artist and they're slow to locate one of them, well you just pick a different track and go on. Well when you're looking for a dozen tracks ina a particular album, you cant really release the album until you've tracked every one of those assets.
What happened to The Who?
We will have a specific announcement about that coming up soon regarding some work that we have coming down the pike with The Who in general that I think people are gonna be pretty happy about...and in general what you're gonna see sorta deep dives with particular artists, where with some artists...of the appropriate stature, you'll see us doing more than whole albums, potentially even entire catalogs.
What kind of schedule will album release be on?
For album releases, in particular, there isn't a set schedule like an album a month...we do want to release albums regularly...generally, the amount of content we release in a week you'll see growing over the course of the year substantially.
Will albums ever represent the majority of your music releases?
I don't think albums will be the dominant release. I don't think we're going to switch to primarily releasing albums, but I will say, in addition to these three we've just mentioned, we actually have MANY in the pike...suffice it to say, it will be a substantial portion of our content offering going forward.
So is $14.99 the new standard album price?
It's not a standard. There's not going to be a standard album pricing. It's going to be a function of how many songs are included in the album...essentially there will be a volume discount applied.
Do you think a variable price rate on albums is disadvantage, especially when stores like iTunes sell albums for a flat rate?
Perhaps, but I think...consumers have demonstrated that they feel that the value they're getting for a game level based at $2 is enormous...[and] there's quite a lot of appetite for music at $2 a song...[so] volume discounts for more music represents quite a good value for the consumers.
Will you ever offer 3-Pack discounts for album tracks?
At this time we're not...I'm not ruling that out as something we're doing in the future. It's just not something we're doing right now.
Would you ever consider releasing "greatest hits" albums?
I don't see any particular reason why we would rule them out...I think that for the right artist under the right circumstances, there's no reason we wouldn't consider doing a greatest hits album that either exists in the world already as a recorded compilation, or [as] in some cases, we've actually had artists come to us who are interested in kind of curating their own new greatest hits compilation for the purpose of Rock Band release. And so I think we're really pretty versatile to ideas of that sort.
So basically, a Rock Band Greatest Hits album?
Exactly.
(Ed note: Rigopulos later explained that they kind of did this with Grateful Dead tracks already, unofficially.)
At the end of the interview, Rigopulos let me know that Rock Band had recently surpassed 8 million song downloads. That's about 2 million just since their new store opened (and Still Alive became offered for free).
Fucking awesome stuff! I love Harmonix! <3 <3 <3 <3
#965
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Thread Starter
..And the shitstorm over at the official forums is well underway! I love how every week, people bash on HMX and say that Rock Band is dead, and then those same people are back posting the same thing the next week. Fucking losers.
#966
The "entire catalog" part of that announcement is insane. I wonder if it'll be someone who only has a few albums, like the Stone Roses. (Unlikely choice - they were just the first two album band who came to mind.)
I assume it'll probably end up being the Police, though - one track at a time.
I assume it'll probably end up being the Police, though - one track at a time.
#967
DVD Talk Legend
Nothing against Doolittle, but I'd rather have Surfer Rosa if we're getting a Pixies album. We already have one of the best songs from Doolittle (Wave of Mutilation) in the game, and I would love to play "Where Is My Mind" and "Gigantic".
#970
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I'll probably pick up both the Cars and the Pixies pack, can't say I'm overly excited with Judas Priest, but since I've picked up most of the DLC already I'll probably break down and get that one, too.
Glad to see HMX moving forward with the albums, in-game track selection is going to explode, which is always good.
Glad to see HMX moving forward with the albums, in-game track selection is going to explode, which is always good.
#972
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meh, judas priest is kinda weak but I'm sure i'll grab a song or two, and the only good Pixies song is "Where is my mind." Now, the Cars, where the hell did that come from and sign me up!
#973
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I must be in the minority here, but I prefer either newer songs (the killers is awesome), or more commercial songs that other non "rock fans" like to play. GnR, JBJ, etc..
#974
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Thread Starter
Originally Posted by Michael Corvin
Operation: Mindcrime
#975
DVD Talk Hero
I'm ecstatic about albums, especially since these 3 are completely out of nowhere. I'll be getting The Cars, likely. I'll give Priest and Pixies a listen to see how I like them.
Still, I think Judas Priest is a very strange artist to debut with...
Still, I think Judas Priest is a very strange artist to debut with...