Tag Archives: mtv

Rovio has thrown its weight behind MTV’s A Thin Line campaign, which aims to raise awareness of and crack down on cyber bullying.

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November’s nearly over, and all we have is a measly 1,000 songs. Where’s our sudden influx of Rock Band Network tunes? Well, as it turns out, MTV’s handing us a rain check on that one. A wise man once said that “you can’t kill the metal,” but – if you’re MTV – you can certainly delay it.

“We’re working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still TBD,” an MTV spokesperson told Kotaku.

“The tools necessary for bands to start authoring and prepare their content for review are already live on Creators.rockband.com/tools/download. The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place. People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch.”

Well, that’s perfect, actually. We need a bit more time to put the finishing touches on the VG247 theme song. And by “finishing touches,” we mean “find a place where it’s not a violation of copyright law to take ‘Flash’ by Queen and replace every utterance of ‘Flash’ with ‘VG247.’” We’ve got a long road ahead of us, but we’re hopeful.

Boy, time sure flies, doesn’t it? Yet another month is in the books, and we’ve got NPDs to prove it. Now all that’s missing is… oh, good timing – thanks, MTV! Let the post-NPD trash-talk begin!

“We outsold them two-to-one on a revenue basis and we outperformed on a unit basis as well, despite the fact that they had an eight-day advantage, and were giving away free software,” said MTV Games general manager Scott Guthrie to Gamasutra.

“At the end of the day, The Beatles: Rock Band clearly outperformed them, and we’re not done yet. We’re anticipating a very successful holiday period.”

Guthrie also gave out a bit of advice while standing on the winner’s podium.

“I think when you’re giving away a great artist like Van Halen, to me it marks a little bit of desperation in trying to move their product,” he said. “Van Halen is a great artist, and it’s a pity that they went from trying to sell that product this December to giving it away in September.”

Aw, Van Halen, you look cold. Here’s a blanket and some hot cocoa. Yep, good ol’ Harmonix’ll treat you right.

More through the link.

Guitar Hero 5 may be winning the battle of the bands, but you won’t find any gently weeping guitars over at Viacom.

“It’s been terrific. The sales have exceeded our internal expectations. In the first week we’ve sold about 25% of our inventory, and we’ve had tremendous excitement around this game. The reviews have been incredible… It really is a work of art. The game delivers in all respects and we think it’s going to have legs,” said Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman during a Goldman Sachs conference call.

Dauman also noted that, surprisingly enough, the most expensive Beatles SKU isn’t doing too shabbily, despite less-than-friendly economic conditions.

“The special limited edition set that we have priced at $249, with the Ringo drums, is selling really fast, and it looks like we’ll be selling out of that in November, so if any of you are interested in buying that you’d better hurry up,” he said.

More – including some of analyst Jesse Divnich trademark soothsaying – through the link.

Thanks, Industry Gamers.

Rhythm game sales may be down 46% in the US, but that hasn’t stopped MTV from shelling out mad money to bring in some overseas assistance. According to sources close to MTV’s deal with Beatles rights holders, MTV’s paying a minimum of $10 million and an expected $40 million in royalty fees to give the British sensations a virtual makeover.

“The royalty rates on this are not even comparable to anything that has been done before,” said chairman of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Martin Bandier to The LA Times.

No kidding, Martin. More through the link.

CVG‘s gotten a quick peek at Lego Rock Band on this Nintendo DS, and apparently, it’s even more family friendly than the main versions of the game.

For one thing, “suggestive lyrics” will be absent from the game. Songs included on the DS’s surprisingly capable cart are Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs, Monster by The Automatic and Ray Parker Jr’s theme from Ghostbusters.

The game includes an ad hoc multiplayer mode, and its single-player functions similarly to that of Rock Band Unplugged.

More through the link.

Kotaku‘s holding a bunch of psychedelic screens for Beatles Rock Band and very cool they look too.

We must admit, the more we see, the more we like.

Game’s out 9th September.

Check them out.

EA, MTV and Harmonix have now given us the Euro date for Rock Band Unplugged on PSP.

It’s scheduled to hit our shores on June 19th, which is just ten days after the US release.

Full track listing through the link.

Rock Band Unplugged is coming to PSP June 9, and the track list has been revealed for it.

Musical eras span between the present with AFI to The Who in the 1960′s.

If you aren’t tired of music games, and are interested in what’s on it, read on below the break.

Thanks, Joystiq.

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MTV has promoted Shane Satterfield, former GameTrailers editor-in-chief, to Spike’s VP of content, reports GI.biz.

Satterfield will continue to head GameTrailers, but new responsibilities include accruing new content for the Spike website.

“I am excited to welcome Shane into this new role,” said Jon Slusser, senior VP. “He will bring his creativity, leadership skills and proven success to Spike.com as he has to GameTrailers.”

Satterfield will also work closely with Viacom’s marketing department.

The official The Beatles Rock Band site is slowly instruments, presumably those you’ll get plastic replicas of when the game is released on September 9.

There’s Ringo’s Ludwig drum kit and the band’s classic Epiphone Casino guitar with a vintage Vox stack beside it.

Take a look through here.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Warner and MTV may have reached a stalemate over how much Rock Band DLC is worth, which is likely to mean no more Warner music for the game.

Already-contracted content, however, will still be made available.

Those looking forward to tracks from The Grateful Dead, the Pretenders, Jane’s Addiction and others will still get them by the end of the year.

The aforementioned artists were signed to Rock Band before Warner decided it wanted more money for rights.

Look for Warner music to stop being offered by the end of 2009. Even if an agreement is reached it could take another five months to get more.

MTV has told Billboard that rhythm action phenomenon Rock Band, could have as many as 5,000 track this year.

“Rock Band offers new music every week,” says the release, and “maintains a selection of more than 500 songs on its platform and has sold an average of four songs per user. MTV said it plans to increase the number of available songs this year to as many as 5,000.”

“What comes with the success of Rock Band and Guitar Hero is the microscopic view of what the potential of music in this medium can be,” said Steve Schnur, EA’s worldwide executive of music and marketing.

“There are other titles that continue to be not just successful, but outsell these games by wide margins. So the question isn’t, What’s the next Rock Band? The question is, When can we take the model of a 24/7, day-by-day musical relationship with not only music games, but with every game? I believe this is the year that’s going to happen.”

Guitar Hero World Tour’s Red Octane recently announced that in the UK, GH:WT was outselling Rock Band at a ratio of 4:1.

Thanks, GameDaily.

Harmonix and MTV have announced that six new tracks including ‘Tell Me Baby’ by RHCP are available as of right now.

The other songs included are:

• Smashing Pumpkins – Siva
• The Cars – “Just What I Needed
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Tell Me Baby”
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Gimme Three Steps”
• Oasis – “Live Forever”
• 30 Seconds to Mars – “Attack”

Have fun with those, won’t you?

By Mike Bowden

Off the back of the earlier news that Guitar Hero World Tour has outsold Rock Band by a ratio of 2:1, Red Octane’s UK senior brand manager, Ian McClellan, told VG247 today that this figure is more like 4:1 in the UK.

“From a UK perspective, we think the growth in music gaming in 2008 is a great thing, as it brings new and different music to consumers and allows them to experience the feeling of being a rock star,” said McClellan.

“The emergence of new titles such as Rock Band is great if it grows the overall market. However, based on our UK market figures, that ratio of sales is conservative – its more like 4:1,” he added.

“We have found that more casual titles such as Wii Music have been the titles that have actually grown the overall category by introducing new gamers to this genre”.

By Mike Bowden

Harmonix and MTV have announced six new Grateful Dead tunes will be added to the Rock Band store this week.

The songs – priced at $1.99 (PSN) or 160 Microsoft Points per track – will be available tomorrow on XBox Live and Thursady on PSN.

If you want the full ‘six pack’ then it’ll cost you 800 MS Point or $9.99 from PSN.

The songs included are:

• Hell in a Bucket
• Don’t Ease Me In
• Cold Rain & Snow
• Doin’ That Rag
• Fire on the Mountain
• Uncle John’s Band

By Mike Bowden

Harmonix and MTV have announced six new tracks for Rock Band Wii including two from Trent Reznor’s industrial orchestra, Nine Inch Nails.

Each track costs 200 Wii Points and are available to download right now.

The full playlist is:

• Nine Inch Nails “March of the Pigs”
• Nine Inch Nails “The Collector”
• Ramones “Rockaway Beach”
• Clash “I Fought the Law”
• Jimmy Buffett “Margaritaville”
• Jimmy Buffett “Volcano”

No “Closer”? Shame. We like that one.

By Mike Bowden

Harmonix and MTV have announced that the Rock Band Music Store is now available for Nintendo Wii.

There are an initial 50 tracks including 20 free and 30 paid-for. Each track will cost you 200 Wii Points.

For everything that’s available, see the press release after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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MTV and Harmonix has announced that the ‘Lenny Kravitz Pack 01′ will hit Rock Band this week.

The pack will include ‘Freedom Train,’ ‘Mr. Cab Driver’ an ‘Let Love Rule’ from the Let Love Rule album. You also get ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’, so it’s a pretty good line we reckon.

No price has been given but these things usually cost 440 MS Points and around £3.49 from PSN.

Full release after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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MTV and Sony announced at CES 09 last night that they have struck a deal which will facilitate PlayStation 3 owners to be able to watch certain MTV programs via PSN.

Shows such as The City, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels will be available from February.

More shows “as they become available,” says the release.

No price as of yet.

Full thing after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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