The Beatles Stand Alone From “Rock Band”

In case you missed my impromptu live-blogging of the Beatles/MTV/Harmonix press conference: The Beatles catalog has been licensed by MTV and Harmonix for use in a video game that’s coming out late next year, and as of right now, the title will be a standalone game that will not bear the Rock Band brand. Harmonix noted its reticence toward doing Rock Band standalone products during the press conference and referred to this product as a “journey” through the Beatles catalog, from Please Please Me to Abbey Road. I guess they are taking it chronologically by recording date. (Or maybe they all just hate Let It Be.)

Harmonix was not willing to say whether the game would be competitive a la Rock Band. Personally, I’m a little worried about this. I don’t want one of those dippy ’90s David Bowie or Peter Gabriel CD-ROM non-games–I want to rock out with my friends on “She Said, She Said.”

As far as remastering of the catalog goes, Giles Martin, son of George and the game’s music producer, was a little murky on that, only suggesting that they would adhere to the band’s original mixes as much as possible. One assumes that some sort of mastering would need be done to transfer it to the videogame world, particularly given that most games of today operate in 5.1 surround and beyond. Two birds with one stone, right?

Let’s just hope the currently developing “journey” turns out as good as this gem: