You might have heard that Kurt Cobain's estate and the makers of "Guitar Hero" are at odds. You might even have heard of the lawsuit threats - but if you don't play the game, you might not know why Courtney Love is spending hours on Twitter denigrating the game and why Nirvana's surviving members are asking that the Cobain likeness be 're-locked'. 

As we prepare for the E3 madness to begin, there are some interesting nuggets of information floating about. None are necessarily long enough to warrant their own entry, so here, in easy to digest bullet points, are the whispers we’re currently hearing.

• Hope “God of War 3” isn’t on your holiday wish list. Despite widespread assumptions that the game is due this year, word now is that it has been pushed to 2010 (as has the next “Gran Turismo”). We may get official confirmation of this tomorrow at Sony’s press conference. 
• Microsoft’s press event later today will be star-filled. Tony Hawk will be there to demo (big shock here) “Tony Hawk Ride”. The big news is Microsoft’s surprise guest who will kick off the conference. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but I will say the guest musical in nature – and is likely to “Help!” demo a hotly anticipated game from Harmonix. 
  • Update. Yep, they showed up. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison reunited on stage to promote “The Beatles: Rock Band” - but they didn't play the game. “The game is good. The graphics are very good. And we were great!,” joked Starr. “Who would have ever thought we’d end up as androids?” added McCartney  
• From Joystiq comes word that the DLC for “Batman: Arkham Asylum” that will allow PS3 owners to play as the Joker will be free. That’s a nice incentive for players and could give the PS3 version the upper hand when the game comes out later this year. 
• “Starcraft 2” is reportedly looking great – and will be on shelves this year. Activision showed the game to analysts last night, who walked away impressed. Blizzard announced that it hopes to ship the game in calendar 2009, which should be a huge boost to Activision’s bottom line. The beta kicks off this summer.

Buried in today's Elecrtonic Arts earnings call (which I won't have time to fully report on for reasons that will be apparent soon; I recommend the Gamasutra write-up) was this amazing revelation from COO John Pleasants: Revenue for music/rhythm games was down 36% during the first quarter of the year and 42% in March, per NPD. As a result, EA has cut the gross sales revenue it expects from its EA Partner division, which distributes "Rock Band" for Viacom.

That's a huge decline. And keep in mind that there weren't any major music game releases during the first quarter of last year, while 2009 saw "Guitar Hero: Metallica" (albeit at the very end of March). As we started to see in late 2008, sales of "Rock Band 2" and "Guitar Hero: World Tour" must be down massively from the original "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero III."

And while EA CEO John Riccitiello said he feels "really bullish" about "Rock Band: Beatles Edition," the fact that the company is expecting $400 million less in sales indicates just how big an impact continued sales of "Rock Band" through last year mattered, and how far "Rock Band 2" is lagging.

No wonder Viacom blamed a "challenging comparison to the particularly strong initial sales of the music video game Rock Band in the first quarter 2008," to put it mildly, for the 37% drop in its ancillary revenues (mainly "Rock Band") in its earnings for last quarter. And this comes after the revelation that even when it was selling well, "Rock Band" lost money for Viacom due to hardware manufacturing costs.

And no wonder Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick recently brought in a heavy hitter, former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig, to oversee its critical "Guitar Hero" business.

Given the high price of music games, of course, it's hard to know how much of the decline is recession-driven. But with declines that dramatic, there's clearly something bigger going on. Consumers are getting tired of the slew of new music games. And/or they're happy with the ones they already have. And/or everybody who wants "Rock Band" or "Guitar Hero" has it. The market may not expand as broadly as many in the industry have been better.

Now that it has gotten the game's source code back from its courtroom nemesis 7 Studios, Genius Products is tapping a new developer to complete production on "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ": Bottlerocket Entertainment.

Several sources close to the project confirmed the news.

Those of you who have been paying too much attention to video game industry news will recognize several layers of irony here. For one, the reason San Diego-based Bottlerocket is available to take on this assignment is that it recently had a game it was working on, "Splatterhouse," taken away by developer Namco Bandai. So essentially, its last game was yanked by an angry (petty?) publisher and as a result, it's now taking on as an assignment a game yanked from another developer by an angry (petty?) publisher.

Furthermore, Bottlerocket and 7 have both been in a bad financial situation this year, which contributed to their problems on "Splatterhouse" and "Scratch," for the same reason: the collapse of Brash Entertainment. 7 was working on "Fun Park" and "9" for Brash, while Bottlerocket was doing "The Flash." When Brash went bankrupt, both developers were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And of course, as I previously reported, "Scratch" started life as a game at... Brash. Now we're really entering Alanis Morissette territory.

So now Bottlerocket is about to start (or already started? I'm not quite sure) work to complete "Scratch," while 7 Studios is finishing up "Space Camp," its casual Wii/DS game for new parent company Activision, and likely talking about doing some kind of spin-off or sequel to "DJ Hero" while dealing with being a defendant and plaintiff in court with Genius Products, its former publisher.

And all three of the past half-year's biggest disaster stories in video games -- the bankruptcy of Brash, Namco taking "Splatterhouse" from Bottlerocket, and 7 Studios' legal tussle with Genius -- have become intertwined.

Tragedy or comedy? Hard to say. But I'll have more on the intertwined story soon.

A Genius executive didn't respond to a request for comment (no surprise since the company has only communicated through publicists through its lawsuit against 7 Studios and Activision). A Bottlerocket executive declined to comment.

7 Studios is giving as good as it gets in the ongoing smackdown over "Scratch: The Ultimate DJ."

The game's developer, recently acquired by Activision Blizzard, filed a counter-suit on Wednesday asking for over $1 million in damages and alleging that publisher Genius Products has engaged in a "textbook case of unlawful and unsavory business practices." The Cut Scene obtained a copy.

(The suit is technically being filed by 7 Studios, but the law firm handling it is the same one that has been defending Activision Blizzard in court, so it's certainly not an independent initiative.)

The response comes just a week after Genius and its partner Numark sued Activision Blizzard, 7 Studios, and 7's CEO Lewis Peterson for allegedly trying to delay and interfere with "Scratch" in order to benefit Activision's competing game "DJ Hero."

In a nutshell, 7 Studios' argument is that as a novice video game publisher, DVD distributor Genius was incompetent. Amongst the allegations:

-Genius delayed production because it had trouble getting approvals from Microsoft and Sony to publish on the 360 and PS3 and in fact still doesn't have approval from Sony.

-Genius didn't deliver 7 Studios the music it needed for the game on time. By this January, three months before "Scratch" was supposed to be completed, it had only less than 25% of the tracks.

-The turntable controllers weren't delivered to 7 Studios in time, delaying production by several months. By late 2008, Genius was considering abandoning those pricey accessories, though it ultimately decided against that.

-Due to all those delays, as well as a brief flirtation with making a Wii version, production costs on the game rose. 7 Studios says it started spending more than was budgeted in the initial contract ($5.5 million) to the tune of about $250,000 per month. Genius said it would cover the difference, but it fact only did so for one month (this January) out of six (October-March), leaving 7 $1.25 million in the hole.

-As I previously reported, Genius started approaching other publishers in December. After others passed (including EA, MTV and Ubisoft, though they're not mentioned in the suit), Genius entered talks with Activision, but that deal fell through in March.

-When that didn't work out, in early April, two executives from Numark (manufacturer of the DJ controller, which is now part of a joint venture that owns the game with Genius) allegedly went to dinner with a "Scratch" producer from 7 and tried to recruit him and other co-workers to finish the game for Numark, informing them it would be taken away from 7 shortly.

-Around the same time, Genius tried to terminate its development contract with 7 Studios for cause. First by alleging 7 was insolvent, then, when that was disproved, by saying the developer hadn't delivered materials on time.

Put it all together, and 7 Studios has a succinct story of what it claims Genius Products was trying to do. To quote the complaint:

The promises were made by Genius with the intent to induce 7 Studios to enter into the Developer Agreement, and to continue to develop the game to near completion, at 7 Studios' cost and expense, without adequate support from Genius so that Genius could then take the nearly completed Game and shop it to potential buyers and/or another developer who could complete the game using 7 Studios' substantial, confidential and valuable work product.

 This of course stands in direct contrast to Genius' interpretation of events from its press release announcing its suit:

We believe that Activision and 7 Studios have improperly used confidential information obtained from Genius and 7 Studios to interfere with our efforts to complete our game. In short, we believe that Activision is attempting to sabotage the release of our much anticipated game and prevent it from getting to market prior to the release of "DJ Hero."

So why didn't 7 Studios just return all the code and hardware to Genius and be done with deal after it was bought by Activision? Its story is that it comes down to Genius' attempt to terminate for cause. If it  accepts that the deal was terminated for cause, the developer also has to turn over some proprietary tools it was using to make the game (so another developer can finish it), and give up its rights to royalties.

In a court ruling last week, Genius got an order forcing 7 to turn over the game's source code, even though it included some of the developer's pre-existing tools and technology. Genius also won a restraining order preventing Activision from talking to 7 Studios about "Scratch," but since the publisher's attorney agreed to that order according to a transcript of the hearing, it's not exactly a major victory.

There is one part of the story missing almost entirely from 7 Studios' complaint: Its purchase by Acquisition Activision. Most of the developer's version of events is perfectly plausible given the facts we know: Genius was a novice publisher that has been going through severe financial problems for the past year and it seems tough to believe the game's delays and budget overruns were entirely the fault of 7, an experienced if not exactly AAA developer.

But we still don't have a good explanation of why Activision acquire 7 Studios without having acquired "Scratch," unless it had some desire to interfere with or know more about that game.

Genius executives weren't available to comment. In fact, they have declined to give any interviews, relying only on their publicists to send out press releases whenever they have news to trumpet. Activision Blizzard reps, as well as 7 CEO Lewis Peterson, wouldn't comment either. But they also didn't hire a PR firm and send out their lawsuit to every journalist they could find.

Already rumored on several blogs, Warner Bros. and its many partners today revealed that "Lego Rock Band" is indeed real and coming out for the holidays.

Talk about a marketer's wet dream: You've got two of the biggest brands in the video game world merging along with two of the biggest genres (music and kids/family). This is one of those games that won't take any explaining in the advertising: the name says it all. And practically guarantees good initial sales.

When you think about it, "Lego Rock Band" is the perfect complement to this fall's "Rock Band: Beatles Edition." The latter is looking to extend the franchise's demographics older and the former to move them younger. In both cases, they could help to ease Viacom's "Rock Band"-related financial woes -- Despite solid sales, the games have so far been money losers.

All the merging makes for quite a complex business deal, however. Warner Bros. is publishing the game. Its wholly owned subsidiary TT Games, which has the rights from the Lego Group to make video games based on that license, is developing "Lego Rock Band." MTV is essentially serving as the licensor here, giving Warner the rights to make a game based on its video game brand. And of course "Rock Band" developer Harmonix will be consulting.

What will "Lego Rock Band" be? Essentially "Rock Band," but with adorable, fully customizable characters, and more family-friendly songs like Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" and Pink's "So What." No Ramones or Beastie Boys in this game, I'm betting.

I've confirmed that it will be compatible with all the existing "Rock Band" instruments (and probably most of the "Guitar Hero" ones). No official word on whether there will be any unique guitar, drum and microphone controllers made out Legos (or faux Legos), but , c'mon. The odds of that happenings are about the same as the odds of there not being any new "Guitar Hero" games this year

Turns out there's a lot more backstory to "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ" than Genius Products revealed in its lawsuit this week.

(Update: Genius' request for an immediate restraining order against Activision and 7 Studios was just denied by a judge. However, the suit still continued.)

For one thing, Genius wasn't even the first publisher of the game. "Scratch" has been in the works since early 2007, when Hollywood's dearly departed publisher Brash Entertainment, which went out of business last fall, started working on it with developer 7 Studios. By the summer of 2007, when Brash decided it would focus entirely on games based on movie and TV licenses, it soured on the project. Apparently executives also became concerned about the costs and complex execution of manufacturing and shipping "Scratch'" unique DJ peripheral along with the game.

Genius then bought "Scratch" as part of its move to expand beyond DVD distribution into the video game business (a strategy that has so far resulted in just one release: "Line Rider 2: Unbound"). So when the lawsuit states, "On or about February 26, 2008, Genius entered into a developer agreement with 7 Studios pursuant to which 7 Studios, as the developer, agreed to develop the game for Genius," well, that's pretty misleading. Sure, that may have been when Genius reached an agreement with 7, but it's not when the game started.

Furthermore, the lawsuit's assertion that publishers started to approach Genius with inquiries to buy "Scratch" isn't exactly true either. That may have happened, but it was because Genius was in fact trying to sell the game. By late last year, due in part to higher-than-expected development costs at 7 and also severe financial problems at the DVD distributor that led to a stock market delisting and a sale by previous owner the Weinstein Co. early this year, Genius was looking to get rid of "Scratch."

So when the suit says, "In or about January 2009... Genius received inquiries from a number of notable video game publishers seeking to purchase the Game," that could technically be accurate. But it ignores the primary factor: Genius was inviting those inquiries. They didn't just come out of the blue.

It seems that Genius engaged in talks with several different publishers, including MTV, EA and Ubisoft, but couldn't close a deal with anyone. Then, as the suit indicates, Activision jumped into the mix, partially due to a relationship between Laird Malamed, senior VP at "Guitar Hero" division RedOctane, and 7 Studios CEO Lewis Petersen.

Activision, of course, was interested in "Scratch" due to its similar upcoming "DJ Hero" game (which itself started life at Vivendi Games before that company merged with Activision). It's tough to believe the nation's biggest third party publisher saw the game as a major threat, given that "Scratch" is coming from an inexperienced competitor and doesn't have "Hero" in the title. Nonetheless, it clearly wanted the game, perhaps to integrate parts of it into "DJ Hero" or perhaps to use as a spin-off from or sequel to that franchise in the future.

That's the reason why it decided to buy 7 Studios as well -- so it would have the game and developer. But when Activision and Genius couldn't reach agreement on a deal to buy the franchise, the "DJ Hero" publisher went ahead and bought 7 anyway. That's where things get a bit sketchy and, the sources, I talked to say, where Genius may have something to its case.

Though it had a relationship with Activision from working on budget Wii/DS title "Space Camp," 7 Studios is certainly not a prominent enough developer to be bought purely for the talent. It's only worth something along with "Scratch." So one has to wonder why Activision would go ahead and buy 7 without being sure it could get the game. At best it's a risky move and at worst indicates the "DJ Hero" maker may have been hoping to pressure or interfere with the competing title in some way.

Nonetheless, I understand Activision and Genius were continuing to talk up until when the lawsuit was filed. The fact that Genius not only sued, but aggressively informed the press, indicates that it's now looking to negotiate publicly and get more money than it has so far been offered, either in court-ordered damages or a better sale price.

But Genius is certainly not just an eager little video game publisher that came up with the idea for "Scratch" and then suddenly got attacked by big, mean Activision, as it's trying to portray itself.

Activision's effort to kill the competition to "DJ Hero," its upcoming turntable music game, has earned it a very public lawsuit.

Today Genius Products, the DVD distributor that recently got into the videogame biz, sued Activision Blizzard, along with developer 7 Studios, for allegedly trying to interfere with a contract and misappropriate trade secrets related to its "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ" game in order to benefit Activision's "DJ Hero," which comes out in the fall.

In plain English, here's what Genius and its partner Numark industries, the DJ hardare manufacturer that helped to develop the game's controller, are alleging, according to a copy of the lawsuit

A source at L.A.-based 7 confirmed to the Cut Scene that the development studio has indeed been acquired by Activision. As Genius and Numark allege in their suit, and as I know from previous reporting, Activision was in a very good position to make that deal, since the developer was in severe financial straits after Brash Entertainment went bankrupt and owed 7 $581,000.

There's no doubt that Genius' core allegation about why Activision bought 7 Studios is correct: It  wants to avoid a "Guitar Hero" - "Rock Band" situation on the DJ gaming front. If it couldn't buy the competing title outright, it did the next best thing: Buy the competitors' development talent. That way they're, at the least, not exactly incentivized to do their best work on "Scratch" and also won't be available to work on any sequels or spin-offs.

In fact, they could easily end up working on "DJ Hero." Freestyle Games, which Activision acquired after it picked up the "DJ Hero" series when it merged with Vivendi Games, is making the first game. But if it becomes a big hit, the publisher will surely need more developers to work on spin-offs and sequels. Which means it could keep 7 Studios very busy.

However, all that doesn't mean Genius's suit has any merit. That depends on whether 7 Studios, under Activision's direction, has been violating its contract by witholding its work in order to delay "Scratch's" release, as well as sharing proprietary technology with its new corporate owner.

That's a matter of what the contract says. But Genius CEO Trevor Drinkwater seems pretty confident in his position. "We believe that Activision is attempting to sabotage the release of our much anticipated game and prevent it from getting to market prior to the release of 'DJ Hero,'" he said in a recently issued press release.

Genius and Numark are picking a very public fight with Activision by not only suing, but issuing a press release (and even calling this reporter to make sure I was aware of it). That only happens when all attempts at private discussions have failed and the plaintiff wants to embarass the defendant in public. Which, of course, is often a good strategy with a corporate behometh like Activision Blizzard that, for better or worse, isn't particularly beloved by gamers (even though they love its studios like Infinity Wars and Blizzard).

Genius and Numark are looking for "substantial damages," along with the immediate return of all "Scratch" code and products and an injunction preventing 7 and Activision from using any confidential information they have received.

Activision Blizzard reps haven't yet responded to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, I'm told that work continues on "Scratch," even if the developers have no idea who, if anyone, will release their game.

More updates to come, most likely...

(For those who want to read the entire lawsuit, which Genius's publicists have oh-so-helpfully emailed out to the press, Destructoid has uploaded it here.)

Variety reviewer Chris Dahlen ends his excellent review of "Guitar Hero: Metallica" with an unanswered question that lies at the heart of the career mode:

Who am I? Why do I exist? "Guitar Hero: Metallica's" career mode just doesn't know. Sometimes you're Metallica itself -- but you don't rise to the top. You're already and always are stars.

The rest of the time you're an intro band -- called, none too cleverly, 'Tallica Jr. -- seizing the shot to open for their heroes by playing tracks related to or inspired by the titular band.

Two incongrous parts, in other words, with nothing more in common than the fact that they share a virtual digital stage.

Metaphysical befuddlement aside, "Guitar Hero: Metallica" is really solid, Chris argues. There's a good mix of tracks and difficultly levels and it's well made, giving casual or hard core "Metallica" fans exactly the musical experience they'll want:

"Metallica's" material is perfect for a title aimed at players of all skill levels: the songs selected are melodic and accessible, yet technically challenging. Amateurs can hum along to "Enter Sandman," while expert skin-slappers can woodshed the drum part on "Battery." The disc includes fewer, albeit longer, tracks than the main "Guitar Hero" titles, and metalheads are the key demographic, with classics by Thin Lizzy and Bob Seger straying the farthest from headbanging territory.

But even players who would have preferred a "Guitar Hero: Shawn Colvin" will find the gameplay rewarding, as the set-list boasts a good mix of shredders and ballads, portentous rests and finger-breaking solos.

Perhaps the question ultimately is: Isn't all that enough? Does "Guitar Hero: Metallica" really need a coherent narrative? Because they sure haven't figured out how to do it, but otherwise they've got a great game.

Full review: Guitar Hero: Metallic

With sales and profits recently slowing and future success of the brand critical to the company’s growth, Activision is shaking up its “Guitar Hero” publishing division RedOctane. CEO Bobby Kotick has brought in a heavy hitter to run it: Dan Rosensweig, the former Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo.

Kotick knows Rosensweig from having served on the Yahoo board. The Activision CEO obviously wanted someone he trusts who has a strong business background – even if it’s not in video games -- running things.

When Activision merged with Blizzard, execs identified "Guitar Hero" as one of the three key franchises that would create value, along with "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft." So Rosensweig's task isn't just selling video games -- It's maintaining one of the three legs that supports a $13.7 billion company. (No pressure, though)

Rosensweig takes the title of CEO/president of RedOctane from Kai Huang, who formed the company – which Activision presciently bought in 2006 for $100 million – with his brother Charles.

It turns out that RedOctane's former head of publishing Dusty Welch, who used to be “Activision’s guy” at the unit, left in January (an Activision spokesperson said he still works for the company). Rosensweig is not a direct replacement for him, though. Welch used to report to Kai Huang. But Huang, and his brother,  now report to Rosensweig. To put it bluntly,, the founders aren't in charge anymore.

RedOctane's new CEO was Yahoo’s COO from 2002 to 2006, helping successfully steer it out of the dot-com bust, though also leaving behind a tumultuous and troubled company (to what extent, if any, he bears responsibility for Yahoo's struggles in the past two-plus years is obviously well beyond the purview of this post). Before that, he held a number of roles at Ziff Davis, ultimately becoming president of the company and overseeing the merger of ZDNet and CNET. He has been a partner at private equity firm Quadrangle since leaving Yahoo.

I spoke to Rosensweig briefly today about what he brings to the job and where he sees the “Guitar Hero” franchise going, particularly given his strong background in online media.

(The interview was conducted in an airport on my way to GDC, so transcription is not as exact as I would have liked. Apologies for that.)

Ben Fritz: You don’t have a direct background in video games or music. So why do you think you’re the right guy for this job? Why did you take it?

Dan Rosensweig: Frankly there are very few opportunities in the world right now for high growth businesses like this. When I left Yahoo I was not sure I’d see another opportunity like this to work with a big brand that’s taking the world by storm and making people smile.

I think the future of entertainment and the Internet is being built on the strength of great brands like “Guitar Hero.”

BF: Based on that, is it safe to say that you think the Internet will be of increasing importance to the future of “Guitar Hero?” That it’s not just about plastic guitars?

On Friday, Eurogamer reported that a source detailed the seven "Guitar Hero" titles set to come out this year after this month's "Metallica," some of which haven't been announced, setting the Internet abuzz over whether there's really that many games from a single franchise in the works.

And while I can't confirm all of them -- specifically the Van Halen edition and "Band Hero"; the rest of them I know are correct -- the number of titles is just about right. Back in September during a conference call with analysts, Activision Blizzard management said they were planning to double the number of "Guitar Hero" skus in 2009, from 12 to about 24.

If you count the number of skus (each version of a game for a console counting as a sku) -- four each (PS3, PS3, 360 and Wii) for "Metallica," "Greatest Hits," "Van Halen," "Guitar Hero 5," "DJ Hero" and "Band Hero," along with two DS editions -- you get 26. Which means, give or take a sku, Eurogamer is probably dead on.

And don't forget, unless plans have changed, Activision is planning to triple the number of "Guitar Hero" releases for 2010. So if this year's schedule seems excessive, prepare to soon be flabbergasted.

In its last earnings call, Viacom admitted that "Rock Band" has been a money loser because of the high cost of producing the instruments. The profit is in the software, Chief Financial Officer Tom Dooley explained, and now that there's a good amount of hardware deployed, MTV is hoping to turn the franchise profitable by selling more software to those of us who have instruments. Or to use a familiar analogy, "It’s the razor, razor blade phenomenon. You’ve got the razors out into the marketplace and sold now we have to push the razor blade through."

Meet your newest razor blade: "The Beatles: Rock Band."

When MTV and Beatles music publisher Apple Corps. announced plans to make a game in the fall, they said very specifically that it would be a stand-alone game not affiliated with the "Rock Band" franchise. The implication being that they Beatles were simply too big for the "Rock Band" brand.

But MTV has apparently convinced them otherwise. In part because of the exact phenomenom Dooley described -- A game not affiliated with "Rock Band," which might require (or be connected in consumers' minds to) new hardware, would be a lot tougher to make profitable. Especially given the huge royalties MTV is paying Apple to get the Beatles rights.

In this economy, Viacom can't afford that. A game very specifically designed to work with existing "Rock Band" instruments is a much better sell for the struggling cable conglomerate, both for branding and profit margins.

MTV, through EA, is releasing the game on September 9 (9/9/09 -- get it?). No exclusivity deal like "Rock Band 2," which came out for Xbox 360 a month before Playstation 3. And no delays for the Wii version, as with "Rock Band 2," when it basically missed the holiday season by coming out Dec. 18. Harmonix has its act together on the world's most popular current-gen videogame console, the one that has proven the best seller for Activision's "Guitar Hero," and will release it simultaneously with the other 2 consoles. Which makes a lot of sense given what a mainstream demographic a Beatles game is intended to target. No Playstation 2 version however, even though that proved the second most popular console for "Guitar Hero: World Tour."

And there's even more ways MTV is looking to turn the Beatles game into the profit machine "Rock Band" hasn't been. You know how Wii games usually cost $50? "The Beatles: Rock Band" for Wii will cost $60. MTV is trying to be the publisher that finally gets Wii pricing in line with Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, despite the lower costs of development and the more casual audience.

There will be specialized instruments "modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career," but they'll cost more. No more red ink on the hardware either. The stand-alone guitar for "Rock Band 2" costs $70. For "The Beatles: Rock Band," it'll be $100.

And the premium bundle? The one with a guitar/bass, drums, a mic, and the game? That's coming in at a whopping $250, a full $60, or 32%, more than the same offering for "Rock Band 2."

MTV's deal with the Beatles was an unmistakable sign that it's willing to spend big to bring its music games to a very broad audience and vanquish "Guitar Hero." But today's announcement about the release details is an unmistakable sign that it's determined to use that deal to turn "Rock Band" into a profitable franchise.

Update: I asked an MTV rep why they changed their mind and decided to turn the Beatles game into a "Rock Band" spin-off and got this response: 

During our initial announcement, we said that this game will be a custom standalone dedicated game experience and completely brand new production that will be an unprecedented, experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles. And that is still very true.

The decision to include the Rock Band name in the title was a collaborative decision by Apple Corps, The Beatles, and MTV Games and Harmonix. As we moved through the creative process, it just seemed to make sense to clearly highlight the association between The Beatles game and the critically-acclaimed Rock Band franchise.

Tough negotiations between the music biz and MTV could leave "Rock Band" without new downloadable tracks from one of the big four labels.

Billboard is reporting that MTV and Warner Music have been unable to reach agreement on a single deal since WMG chairman Edgar Bronfman decided last summer that his company deserves bigger royalty rates for music video games. The two sides have traded offers and haven't reached a compromise. For now, reportedly, there's content coming through the pipeline, but it'll be all out by early summer.

That could be a major blow to "Rock Band," which has prided itself on the wide array of tracks available to download, much more than for "Guitar Hero."

Given the tough business deals that Activision negotiates, you would think it would be in the tougher position with Warner. But it's apparently doing fine with Warner, as evidenced by the upcoming "Guitar Hero: Metallica" (a Warner Music act)

Of course, as I reported a few weeks ago, MTV is already losing money on the "Rock Band" hardware. If giving into WMG's demands (thereby probably triggering higher royalties to the other labels) would mean losing money on the DLC as well, I can see why it's playing tough. Some part of that franchise has to actually make a profit.

Yesterday I reported that Viacom (owner of MTV, owner of Harmonix) was disappointed by sales of 2 million "Rock Band 2" units last year. I just got a chance to read through Viacom's earnings call with analysts and found out that the specific words of Chief Financial Officer of Tom Dooley were that there were "lower sales of Rock Band then we had originally hoped."

But there's even more interesting data if you keep digging. It turns out MTV is losing money on every unit of "Rock Band" (1 and 2) sold. According to Dooley, operating margins for Viacom's media networks group (which mainly consists of MTV) were 36% last quarter. "If you exclude the losses from Rock Band," he added, "the core margins were 43% for the quarter." It's impossible to figure out exactly how much "Rock Band" is losing, but given that media networks is a group with $2.5 billion in revenue and $898 million in operating income, a swing of 7 percentage points in the margin ain't chump change.

Why is MTV losing money on "Rock Band?" Simple: the hardware. When you include manufacturing and marketing and the price pressure at retail, Dooley said, the margins are sometimes a little positive, but in the fourth quarter, they were actually negative.

So does that mean "Rock Band" is a failing business? Not necessarily. Because MTV makes money on the software. Margins of 20 to 30%, in fact, which are quite healthy. The company's hope is now that it has sold a good amount of hardware (impossible to say how much; MTV has sold a total of 10 million units of all "Rock Band" games, but we don't know much of that includes guitars, drums and/or mics), people will buy more games and expansion packs. Dooley used a metaphor to explain the plan with which we're all pretty familiar:

Given this plan, it's no surprise there isn't a "Rock Band 3" coming this fall. It almost certainly means that, while there's sure to be a hardware option for Harmonix's upcoming Beatles game, it will be very possible to play it with our existing "Rock Band" hardware. And MTV is hoping we will.

It also means that expansion packs, spin-offs, and other options that get us "Rock Band" owners to buy more games are probably in our future. (Dooley didn't mention the impact of downloadable tracks, but my understanding is that the margins are pretty tight on those and it's just starting to generate any significant money.)

Viacom is the latest media conglomerate to report weak fourth quarter earnings, though after News Corp, Disney, and Time Warner all bombed, investors seem to have been expecting it, so the stock was actually up.

One of the many disappointments? Rock Band 2. According to numerous reports (I didn't listen to this morning's earnings call), the company was disappointed by sales of 2 million units through Dec. 31 and blamed the weak retail environment in the last two months of the year.

In last year's fourth quarter earnings, Viacom announced that the original "Rock Band," which had only been on sale for a month for two consoles at the time (as opposed to three-plus months on one console and two-plus on another for "Rock Band 2") had sold 1.1 million units. It's a little tough to compare sales on those differing schedules, but it's clear Viacom expected a significant increase for the sequel and didn't see it.

Nonetheless, according to PaidContent, Viacom is looking for "Rock Band 2" -- and, I'd bet, Harmonix's upcoming Beatles game -- to be one of its few bright spots in what's shaping up to be a bleak 2009.

I've heard plenty of people ask whether Activision is overexploiting the "Guitar Hero" franchise, what with the annual core sequels, Aerosmith, Metallica, "On Tour" for the DS, etc. etc. But I have to say that this adorable little number, which I found in a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats, may really be the one that jumps the shark. All those buttons really do create noises that kinda resemble music. But somehow I can't imagine this is what the folks at Harmonix and RedOctane had in mind when they first started working on the game:

I wonder if this counts toward Activision's goal to double the number of "Guitar Hero SKUs in 2009?

I won't be able to transcribe my interview with Microsoft entertainment president Robbie Bach (who oversees videogames, amongst other things) until tonight, most likely. But between my talk to him, Microsoft's keynote last night, and Sony's keynote today (which included a section with Playstation topper Kaz Hirai talking videogames), I got a few interesting statistics worth comparing:

-Number of worldwide members of Microsoft's online videogame service Xbox Live: 17 million. Number of registered accounts on Sony's competing Playstation Network: 17 million. (Even though there are substantially fewers PS3s on the market than Xbox 360s, Sony does have the advantage of people going onto PSN from the PSP. In addition, PSN is free to play online, but Xbox Live costs money, though anyone can "join" just to browse downloadable content)

-In the last three months of 2008, Microsoft added 3 million Xbox Live members. In December, Sony added 2.1 million Playstation Network members.

-Playstation Network users have downloaded more than 330 million pieces of content. Microsoft's content downloads went up 70% since it launched the new version of Xbox Live in November (not comparable, I know)

-Over 25 million "Halo" games have been sold and the average player spends more than 150 hours online (given that some people don't play online, that means some people have played a lot more than 150 hours. wow.)

-More than 1.3 million "unique users" have played "LittleBigPlanet." Note that this is not the same as Sony saying it has sold 1.3 million units of the game. There are more than 300,000 user-created levels already. It would take two straight years, non-stop, to play them all.

-Over 80% of all "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" downloads have been on Xbox Live, which means only about 20% are on Playstation Network. Microsoft says it has sold over 60 million song downloads. Assuming that just an infinitismal number of those are for new karaoke game "Lips," that means Sony has sold about 12 million songs on PSN for those two franchises (and probably a few million more for its "Singstar" karaoke franchise).

Speaking at a pre-CES videogame panel Wednesday afternoon, Alex Rigopulos, CEO of "Rock Band" developer Harmonix (owned by MTV), reportedly said his studio isn't focusing on making a third annual version of its key franchise this year (details here or here). Instead, all its energy is going into the "Beatles" focused-spin off game (details on that are here).

As Rigopulos said, that's no surprise for creative reasons, since making that Beatles game good is really important. But it also makes sense business-wise. MTV paid a LOT of money to get rights to the Beatles and needs it that game to sell better than any of the "Rock Bands" have. perhaps more importantly, "Rock Band 2" has sold significantly worse than the original "Rock Band" since launching. It would be hard to justify a third iteration, especially under the assumption that the economy will still be weak next fall. In fact, "Rock Band" for Wii (that's the original one, not "Rock Band 2") was the only version of the game to break NPD's top 20 in November. So there's no reason to think that interested buyers won't be perfectly fine with "Rock Band 2" this fall.

It was a good November for Nintendo and Epic/Microsoft Game Studios, but a bad one for the industry, especially Sony and, to lesser extent, the makers of "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band."

The latest sales data from NPD shows overall sales growth was 10%, which in the midst of a recession is pretty good, but is still down a LOT from last year. That shows the videogame biz is hurting, on a comparative basis, just like pretty much every other sector.

NPD points out that this November had seven fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days than last on its calendar, which is a fair point. But even still, the growth rates are down by such a huge amount that that can't explain the whole difference. Total growth, for instance, plunged from 52% to 10%. Hardware sales growth fell from 41% to 10%, which is somewhat expected since we're now later in the console cycle. But software sales growth plunged from 62% to 11%, which isn't what you'd expect. Seems like software sales should be further increasing now that the console install base is so much bigger.

Without a doubt the company in the most trouble is Sony. Forget about declining growth rates. Playstation 3 sales were actually down 19% in absolute terms from November 2007. Considering that Sony has some very high profile exclusive games out in the past two months, like "LittleBigPlanet" and "Resistance 2," that's downright disastrous. Looks like people just aren't willing to pay $400 for a videogame console right now. (PSP sales were down an even worse 26%, but at least that has the excuse of launching 3.5 years ago, not two).

Also suffering are "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band." 1.5 million "Guitar Hero: World Tour" units have been sold so far this year by Activision, off 55% from "Guitar Hero III" at the same moment in 2007. "Rock Band 2" has sold 809,000 units for MTV and EA. It's tough to compare to last year, since this sequel launched in September, but only for 360, and the original launched last year in late November for 360 and PS3 and added PS2 in December. But consider this: Last November Rock Band sold 382,000 units on its two launch consoles, followed by 463,000 in December for 360 alone, for a total of 845,000. December's always the biggest month, of course, but one week for two consoles and one month for one, compared to a month on one console and a month and a half on two sounds like a more than fair comparison. And "Rock Band 2" is losing to the original.

I'm almost as confused as you are, so here's a cleaner stat: According to UBS analyst Ben Schachter, combined "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" revenue was down 12% in November from last year. And keep in mind that the "Guitar Hero: World Tour" band kit costs $100 more than the highest priced version of "Guitar Hero III."

"Gears of War 2" had a huge month, as expected, though. And "Call of Duty: World at War" launched almost exactly even with "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare," a start that Activision has to be very happy with. The only new original game in the top 10 for November was "Left 4 Dead," which debuted with a strong 410,000 units.

There is one other company I'm forgetting... Oh yea, Nintendo. It seems that recessions don't impact them. I'm not even sure if the law of gravity is in effect at Nintendo HQ. Thanks to more supply and growing demand, Wii sales more than doubled to 2 million last month, the biggest ever for any console outside of December. No doubt Nintendo will break that record next month. Meanwhile, two of its games continue to show what the movie business calls "legs." "Wii Fit" was no. 4 and "Mario Kart" no. 5 six and seven months after their debut, respectively (I'll exclude "Wii Play" because of the free controller issue). Every other new game seems to come and go from the top 10 quickly, but "Fit" and "Mario Kart" keep being snatched up by all those new Wii buyers. Even the much maligned "Wii Music" came back from a weak October launch to sell a solid 297,000 units in its debut.

Notable new games that sold less than that -- though I can't tell by how much and so it's hard to evaluate whether they're bombs or just not quite big enough -- include "Quantum of Solace," "Tomb Raider: Underworld," and "Mortal Kombat vs. DC." There's also "Mirror's Edge," but we already know that one is a bomb.

Here's the complete set of NPD November data. At the suggestion of a smart reader, I've added release dates, so you can fairly compare games that came out earlier or later in the month. I've also added percentage growth from last November for each console, just because I think it's interesting.

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in Nov.  Release date

Gears of War 2         360           Microsoft       1.56 million        Nov. 7

Call of Duty 5            360           Activision      1.41 million       Nov. 10

Wii Play                    Wii           Nintendo        796,000            Feb 12, 2007
Wii Fit                      Wii           Nintendo        697,000            May 19
Mario Kart                Wii            Nintendo        637,000            April 27
Call of Duty 5            PS2           Activision       597,000            Nov. 10
Guitar Hero: WT       Wii           Activision       475,000            Oct. 26
Left 4 Dead              360           EA                  410,000            Nov. 18
Resistance 2            PS3           Sony               435,000             Nov. 4
Wii Music                PS3            Nintendo        297,000            Oct. 20

Console       Nov. unit sales  Growth from Nov. 2007       Lifetime-to-date
Wii              2.04 million                108%                           15.5 million
DS               1.57 million                 3%                              24.6 million
360             836,000                       9%                              12.5 million
PSP             421,000                      -26%                           13.2 million
PS3             378,000                      -19%                            6.1 million

Category             Nov. revenue   Change  Year-to-date revenue  Change
Total industry     $2.91 billion        10%       $16.04 billion             22%
Hardware           $1.21 billion        10%       $5.93 billion               14%
Software            $1.45 billion        11%       $8.21 billion               31%
Accessories        $255 million         7%        $1.91 billion               17%

Much more on EA's guidance reduction and development cuts in the face of weak holiday sales. But I thought this was a really interesting quote from the conference call, which I'm just finishing up listening to. When asked how "Rock Band 2" is selling, this is what CEO John Riccitiello said:

One of the things we didn’t want to do on call is provide specific info on title performance. I would only highlight that "Rock Band" is one of the top franchises in the industry overall and one that I think consumers are finding themselves delighted with. I would encourage all of you to get out before the end of the weekend and pick up one for yourselves.

That's a really specific request. Sounds like EA really wants to move "Rock Band 2" units and move them soon.

It's probably not the best sign when the CEO of a major publisher feels the need to pimp a title to investors and analysts during a conference call.

As the first information about sales in November -- the most important month of the year for videogame sales -- starts to creep out ahead of Thursday's official report from NPD, it's looking like amidst recession, gamers are going for the familiar and the cheap.

To wit, Nintendo prexy Satoru Iwata told Reuters that his company sold 800,000 Wii units in the U.S. during Thanksgiving week, more than double last year's figure. The increase is helped in part by the fact that the supply is bigger, but still, the fact that there's still that much demand indicates consumers are still happy to buy the cheapest (or rather believed to be cheapest, sorry Xbox 360 Arcade) console.

Also selling very well,. it appears, is "Gears of War 2." Microsoft already announced it sold more than 2 million units worldwide and Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter predicts the game sold as many as 3 million units domestically last month (EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich predicts a more conservative 2 million-plus). The other huge game, according to Pachter, was likely "Fallout 3." Bethesda already announced that it shipped 4.7 million units worldwide and the analyst predicts it sold around 1.5 million units in November, on top of the 510,000 from the end of October.

Not selling so well? It looks like the big music games could be in decline. "Guitar Hero: World Tour" sales were already down 61% in October from "Guitar Hero III" last year (as I detailed here) and Divnich predicts the November "III" to "World Tour" drop could be 50%. "Rock Band 2," meanwhile sold a so-so 238,000 units in October and Wii Music moved a dismal 81,000. Only the latter is a flop, but it seems that none are setting the world on fire they way they did last year and even in the first half of this year (when "Guitar Hero III" for Wii, in particular, was very hot).

Another sign: Prices for "World Tour" on eBay are significantly cheaper than retail, indicating that supply is no longer a problem.

It could be that "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero: World Tour" are so expensive and these are obviously lean times when not many people are ready to spend $200 on a videogame ("Wii Music" is only $50 but has other problems, like the fact that it's not very good). Of course the bigger question that Activision and MTV have to worry about is whether this is a sign that the music videogame biz has peaked. Given the hundreds of millions MTV spent on Harmonix and the major investment it's making in a Beatles game, plus the fact that Activision plans to triple the number of "Guitar Hero" skus by 2010, that's a worrying thought.

Finally, it appears that EA's "Mirrors Edge" experiment may not be working out, at least off the bat. I am hearing industry sources that initial sales on the first person parkour game were quite soft.

Of course we'll get actual hard data on Thursday from NPD.

I'd have to say so. Of course, I'm assuming it is marketing. Somehow I don't see a regular fan out there:
-Pulling this off
-Writing the full title of the recently "Guitar Hero: World Tour" in such big letters at the beginning
-Being inspired by "GH: WT," planning this, and producing it all in the span of three weeks

Nonetheless, I don't really care. It's truly awesome. And I'm probably encouraging Activision's marketing plan by posting the video here for free. They deserve it.

Update: According to Creativity Online (per GameCyte), it was indeed an ad agency, called Droga5, which made this vid. Shocker!

The videogame biz is definitely losing a bit of its mojo.

The best evidence? New NPD data shows that Guitar Hero: World Tour has sold 534,000 units in its first week. Pretty good. But consider that last year, "Guitar Hero III" sold 1.4 million units in the exact same period. That's a drop of 62%.

Overall, the industry grew by 18% in October. Again, that's impressive, especially compared to the rest of the media sector and the overall economy. But last October, it grew an astounding 73%. Perhaps most importantly, October's 18% grown was actually less than the 25% year-to-date growth, meaning the hugely important fall season is so far dragging down the industry, rather than accelerating it.

Nintendo, however, remains the ultimate exception. It sold 803,000 Wi''s in October, which is simply astounding. It's the biggest month since last November and December for Nintendo's console and is more than the 360 and PS3 combined. Sony's console, meanwhile, was the only next gen console to see sales drop from September, indicating that "LittleBigPlanet" was definitely not a console seller. That's definitely not a great sign for Sony, or for the movie studios hoping that more PS3's will lead to more Blu-ray sales.

The month's biggest game was "Fable II," good news for Microsoft and also, I'll admit, people like me who loved the game (though it's even more reason to not let everyone in the world annoy me by completely opening the co-op mode). On software too, though, the biggest story was Nintendo. "Wii Fit," "Mario Kart Wii" and "Wii Play" were the no. 2, 4 and 5 titles for the month. Considering that they came out in May, April, and last February, respectively, that's astounding (even discouting "Wii Play" since people buy that for the controller). "Wii Fit" has sold more than 2.8 million units in the U.S. so far, a pretty amazing figure.

On the other hand, "Wii Music" didn't make the top 10 in its launch date. Given how inaccessible and quite frankly annoying the game is (read the review) I'm not too surprised.

In other game debuts, "Fallout 3" did very well with just one week on sale, "Saints Row 2," "SOCOM," and "LittleBigPlant" did pretty well, and "Dead Space" wasn't as hot as I'm sure EA was hoping.

Here are all the month's stats:

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in Oct.

Fable II                     360           Microsoft        790,000
Wii Fit                      Wii           Nintendo         487,000

Fallout 3                   360           Bethesda         375,000
Mario Kart                Wii           Nintendo          290,000
Wii Play                    Wii           Nintendo          282,000
Saints Row 2            360            THQ                270,000
SOCOM                    PS3            Sony                231,000
LittleBigPlanet         PS3            Sony                215,000
NBA 2K9                  360            2K                   202,000
Dead Space             360            EA                   193,000

Console       Oct. unit sales       Lifetime-to-date
Wii              803,000                    13.5 million
DS               491,000                    23.0 million
360             371,000                    11.7 million
PSP             193,000                    12.8 million
PS3             190,000                    5.7 million

Category             Oct. revenue   Change  Year-to-date revenue  Change
Total industry     $1.31 billion        18%       $13.13 billion             25%
Hardware           $495 million         5%        $4.72 billion               14%
Software            $697 million        35%       $6.76 billion               36%
Accessories        $120 million        -8%       $1.65 billion               18%

No, we don't have any sales figures yet, but I think a comparison of Activision's boasting about both games is quite instructive.

The week after launching "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" last year, Activision put out a press release with this lede:

Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) announced today that consumer sell through for Guitar Hero(R) III: Legends of Rock(TM) exceeded $115 million within seven days of the game's North American release, making it the largest single product launch in the company's history.

It's more than a week since "Guitar Hero: World Tour" launched and there hasn't been any press release. Here's what Activision publishing president Michael Griffith said on yesterday's earnings call:

The band kit launch quantities are virtually sold out across the channel and even with our manufacturers at full capacity and a continuous flow of supply throughout the quarter, we are likely to not be able to keep up with demand for the band kits this holiday.

Additionally, our retail checks indicate that the Guitar Hero World Tour band kit is outselling its only competitor by a very wide margin. As expected, early consumers are disproportionately interested in the band kit as a result of the drum controller innovation and the addition of the microphone. Our retail and consumer programs focused on the guitar bundle and the standalone software are weighted to the Thanksgiving weekend and holiday gift-giving seasons. The mass market oriented price point for these SKUs and the fact that they can be enjoyed with both our latest guitar controller as well as previously released guitars should make them sought after gifts this holiday.

Translation: the full band kit is selling decently, better than "Rock Band 2" at least (though one would expect that the week it launches). The stand alone game and guitar combo? They're not starting off as hot.

If "World Tour" had beat "Guitar Hero III's" $115 million launch by any significant margin, which shouldn't have been too tough given that the full band kit costs nearly twice as much, it's reasonable to assume that Activision would put out a similarly exuberant press release, or at least boasted about the number somewhat in its earnings call. Since it didn't, I think we can assume this wasn't quite the boffo launch Activision was hoping for.

The fact that it may not be able to keep up with demand doesn't actually tell us how well the game is selling, since that depends entirely on the production capacity. Furthermore, every videogame store I've seen in the past week has had at least some copies of the full band kit in stock. "Virtually sold out" doesn't seem to mean the same thing for "Guitar Hero: World Tour" as it does for the Wii. I can't remember the last time I saw one of Nintendo's consoles sitting on a shelf.

Of course, Griffith is probably right that the more casual market that has loved "Guitar Hero" so much is  more likely to shop around the holidays and be drawn to the less expensive guitar or game-only versions. But with the economy worsening, will people spend $100 for a videogame, or even $60 for sequel mere months after they bought the last "Guitar Hero?" And will the more hardcore audience really buy into the full band kit when "Rock Band 2" is at least as good, if not better?

I doubt "World Tour" will be a flop, but it is certainly launching into a tough market for several reasons. Its fate will be a test of everything from the impact of the economy on videogame sales to mass market consumers' interest in Activision's annual (or even more frequent) sequel strategy to whether "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" can healthily co-exist as remarkably similar games.

So far, Activision doesn't seem to have too much to brag about.

One other important detail from our story about MTV's new Beatles game that I forgot to include in yesterday's post: The game will get 45 songs from the band's 1962-69 tenure with label EMI.

That of course covers almost everything the band did, as far as I can tell. The only people left unhappy might be thsoe who are really into 1970's "Let it Be." Though of course now the big question will be which 45 songs? We'll probably be waiting a long while to find out.

(Thanks to Joystiq for noticing something I didn't in Variety's own story. Yesterday was a very long day.)

That's probably not a surprise, but Variety's crack music reporter Phil Gallo got details on just how MTV managed to get the much sought after rights to translate the most popular band of all time into a videogame. Here's the relevant excerpt from his story:

Sony/ATV handles the music publishing of the vast majority of songs written by Lennon and McCartney.

The music publisher was the last to sign the [Beatles videogame] deal, and while no financial figures were released, [CEO Martin] Bandier said Sony/ATV asked for as much as possible.

"There have been mutterings from artists and songwriters that they are not being offered their fair share in videogames, but the gamemakers have the leverage," he said. "In the world of rock, there are thousands of tracks that will work, but when you get into the world of unique artists, that leverage shifts, tremendously, to the artists and songwriters.

"We signed a deal that would be considered very rich by the videogame company but fair for the artists. It will have online implications that will be enormous."

With the Beatles inking a deal for a videogame, it leaves one key holdout from the classic rock era, Led Zeppelin. The British hard rock quartet, rumored to be reforming without lead singer Robert Plant, was one of the first acts approached when "Guitar Hero" was in prototype form. Then, and now, they have rejected uses of their songs in games.

The Rolling Stones moved their post-1970 catalog to Universal Music Group earlier this year, and the music conglom said digital was a priority, suggesting a dedicated game is likely.

Given that Universal Music Group and Activision are both part of the same happy Vivendi family, how much do you want to bet that means we'll be seeing "Guitar Hero: Rolling Stones" in the not too distant future?

Which brings up one interesting question: Why are the Beatles getting their own unique game and not "Rock Band: Beatles Edition?" One possibility is that the Beatles are so (self?) important that they demand/deserve their own game in which their music doesn't mix with other artists.

The other possibility is that, since Activision surely went after these rights hard, Apple Corp. (administrator of the Beatles catalog) decided it didn't want to be accused of taking sides in the "Rock Band" - "Guitar Hero" war, so it just sidestepped the whole mess.

Full story: MTV cues up Beatles videogame

MTV and Apple Corps, administrator of the Beatles catalog, are going to be announcing an "unprecedented global music project" tomorrow. What are the odds that MTV would embark on a global music project these days that doesn't include a "Rock Band" component? Pretty low, I'd say. More details as we uncover them, of course, but I'd say "Rock Band: Beatles Edition" is looking like a distinct possibility.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports that it's happening, though it's not clear whether it's a few downloadable tracks, a new game, or what. I'm looking into it.

Nintendo has yet to announce the full song list for Wii Music, even though it comes out next week, but I  just got my copy and, conveniently, there's a list of credits in the instructions for all 14 of the the licensed songs. Not exactly competition for the track lists in "Rock Band 2" or "Guitar Hero: World Tour," but it's not meant to be.

The company previously said there are around 50 songs in "Wii Music," so we can assume all the rest are either public domain tunes or Nintendo's own theme songs. Unsurprisingly for a game that's meant to have such broad appeal, the licensed tracks are all really well known songs that have been around for a while and everyone can enjoy, if not exactly love. "Jingle Bell Rock" is about as edgy as it gets. And of course since there's no singing in "Wii Music," they're are well known melodies that you can recognize without the lyrics.

Interestingly, since the point of "Wii Music" is "playing" the song yourself, there's no issue with master recordings. So the instruction book only credits the composers and publishing companies, not the recording artists.

Take a look and see what you think:

"Chariots of Fire" theme song by Vangelis

"Daydream Believer" by John Stewart (made famous by The Monkees)

"Every Breath You Take" by Sting

"I'll be There," originally performed by The Jackson 5

"I've Never Been to Me," the classic Motown hit by Charlene

"Material Girl," which was made famous by a nice young lady named Madonna

"Please Mr. Postman," the debut single from the Marvellettes from way back in the early '60s

"September," from Earth, Wind and Fire

"Suriyaki," a Japanese song popular in the '60s performed by Kyu Sakamoto (OK, I've never heard of that one)

"The Loco-Motion," another 60s pop song that tortured young adults my age when we were kids

John Lennon's "Woman"

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by the illustrious George Michael

"Jingle Bell Rock." We all know this one.

"Do-Re-Mi" by Rogers and Hammerstein from "The Sound of Music." (No, not the last song that Kurt Cobain wrote.)

After reading the brief New York Times article today and then the press release about "AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack," I found myself still wondering exactly what the game is, how it works, and why MTV is choosing this route. So I spoke to the cable conglomerate and budding videogame publisher's Paul DeGooyer, senior VP of electronic games and music. Here's what I learned about what "AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack" is, what it isn't, and why it exists:

-It contains 18 songs (listed below), all recorded live from the famous Castle Donington Show in 1991. None of the songs are from the band's new album "Black Ice." As the Times already reported, both the game and the album will be available exclusively at Wal-Mart.
(Those of us in the rare position of not living near a Wal-Mart will just have to buy it online, I suppose.)

-AC/DC is now exclusive to "Rock Band" for "a term." No idea how long that term is. But just as Aerosmith is exclusive to "Guitar Hero" for a while after its eponymous game, MTV has a similar deal with AC/DC. That deal has resulted in this expansion pack and also the inclusion of "Let There Be Rock" in "Rock Band 2." No word on whether there will be future AC/DC songs for the "Rock Band" platform, either on discs or available to download, as part of the exclusive deal.

-Unlike "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Edition," you don't play as the band. You're covering AC/DC, just as you do every other group in "Rock Band." "There are some custom graphics," explained DeGooyer, "but we really don't think people are looking for little avatars and that's why it's not a $59 game." (It's a $39 game on 360, PS3 and Wii, $29 on PS2).

-The game will feature some, but not all, of the functionality from "Rock Band " and "Rock Band 2." All four instruments (guitar, bass, drums, mic) are used, you can "tour" through all 18 songs on your own or in a group, there are score duels and tug of war. However, there's no online capability. If you want to play with your friends, you have to be in the same room. In addition, there's no character creator. I would assume there are set characters you can choose from instead.

-All 19 tracks can be transferred onto a PS3 or 360 hard drive free of charge in order to import them into "Rock Band" or "Rock Band 2." Then they show up like any other downloaded tracks and can be played with all of the game's modes, online or offline.

But this can only be done once per disc. That's MTV"s way of preventing someone from sharing a disc with friends, or re-selling it, and essentially engaging in piracy. Seems reasonable to me. Given that songs cost $2 to download online, 18 tracks for $40 is just slightly more than it would cost to buy them online. Not the best deal ever, but not a rip-off either.

-DeGooyer says that AC/DC members chose to put the "Live at Donington" songs in the game and that MTV enthusiastically agreed. "To us it hung together more than cherry picking master recordings," he said. "It really is an experience. You put the disc in and you play through a live set."

-No specific word on whether there will be more expansion tracks along these lines. But launching a game like this in concert with an album as part of a big retail promotion fits in with MTV's strategy of integrating "Rock Band" into the overall music business so that a videogame component becomes a natural part of any product launch or marketing push.

"This is a huge statement about our platform and how meaningful it has become," DeGooyer commented "We want to be an authentic component of the music business. If a band is trying to get something done, if they've got a great new record or are going on tour, we'd love to be working with them. It could be a DLC pack or something more like this, which is all the bells and whistles."

-Not sure of the answer to my favorite question after dealing with the one major annoyance of "Rock Band 2": Do you have to play through the tour to unlock all the songs? Or are they all available as soon as you turn the game on? Update: I got the answer. All the songs on the disc are immediately available. They don't need to be unlocked.

-Here's the game's set list, which is the exact same set list as "Live at Donington" for those who own the DVD (or, as in the amazing case of one person I know who was bragging today, were there):

"Thunderstruck"
"Shoot to Thrill"
"Back in Black"
"Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be"
"Heatseeker"
"Fire Your Guns"
"Jailbreak"
"The Jack"
"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"
"Moneytalks"
"Hells Bells"
"High Voltage"
"Whole Lotta Rosie"
"You Shook Me All Night Long"
"T.N.T."
"Let There Be Rock”
"Highway To Hell”
"For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)”

I may be the only one, but I've been wondering what would happen to all the music in "Rock Band 1" now that "Rock Band 2" is out. Yes, people who own "Rock Band 1" can transfer those tracks to their hard drive and use them in the sequel for $5. But let's saw you are starting your "Rock Band" experience by buying the new #2. You've got 80+ songs on the disc and hundreds available for download. What if you want to get "Blitzkrieg Bop" or "Gimme Shelter?"

I asked MTV and the answer is: buy "Rock Band 1." It and Harmonix plan to keep publishing the first "Rock Band" indefinitely. On the one hand, this is nice, since it keeps all those songs available to people who buy "Rock Band 2" (or future sequels and spin-offs, one would assume). But is it really the best option?

FIrst of all, it seems a bit confusing. After all, "Rock Band" isn't just a collection of songs. It's a videogame with modes and options that have all been improved and superceded in "Rock Band 2." For the casual fan (of which "Rock Band" has lots), this strikes me as fairly confusing: You can start the "Rock Band" play experience by buying either game and then downloading any tracks you want from online. But the gameplay experience is different and better in "Rock Band 2." If you buy the first edition, you can't get the songs on the sequel disc. If you buy the sequel first, you can get the songs on the original disc, if you pay an extra $5. That's a totally different model to understand than the a-la-carte downloads for all the other songs online. Huh?

The simple solution, which I had assumed MTV would adopt, would be to phase out production of the first "Rock Band" in order to drive sales of the superior "Rock Band 2" and then make all of the songs available on the first disc available to download. That way those of us who bought the first edition only have to pay $5 to keep those songs, while any new buyers will only get the best edition of the game, with the option to get every original "Rock Band" song from the same online destination with the exact same pricing model as every other available track.

Other old games stay on sale even when sequels come out, of course. You can still find the original "Halo" at your local GameStop or Best Buy. But "Rock Band" is supposed to be a "platform" according to MTV, not just a franchise. Which is why I think this melange of songs on disc and online with different costs and technical steps needed to put them all together is going to soon become a major pain.

The videogame industry and the music biz are in a very, shall we say, tendentious place. On the one hand there are a huge number of music games on the way (Multiple "Guitar Hero's," "Rock Band 2" and more spin-offs/sequels without a doubt, "Ultimate Band," "Rock Revolution," "Wii Music," etc.), all of which generate royalties for music labels and publishers, not to mention exposure to a huge new audience. (For a good summary, see this Variety article.)

But methinks Activision Blizzard CEO goes a bit far in this statement to the Wall Street Journal (subscription only, excerpted by GameDaily):

We have lots of music to choose from, lots of artists to choose from. A 12-year-old kid has no idea who Steven Tyler is or who Aerosmith is. The bulk of our consumers will tell you they're not purchasing the products based on the songs that are include. They're purchasing based on how fun the songs are to play when they're playing them.

Any intelligent person can see that Kotick is taking an aggressive public stance in essentially letting the music companies know that he's not bending to their demands -- or more specifically the demands of Warner Music Group topper Edgar Bronfman -- to pay more money to use their music. (Sources have made clear to me that the dispute between Bronfman and "music video games" is really just about "Guitar Hero.")

But this assertion is pretty clearly belied by the evidence. If including major bands isn't important for "Guitar Hero," then why is Activision shelling out to get them? Kotick is famously a hard nosed businessman who only spends money when he needs to. Why pay "Aerosmith" millions, and the bands included in "Guitar Hero" tens of thousands each, to get their music if that's not an important factor for consumers buying the game?

Here's a simple test: If Kotick is right, then Activision should release a new game called "Guitar Hero: Unsigned indie bands you've never heard of." There are thousands of decent independent bands that would kill to be on "Guitar Hero" without any payment just for the promotional exposure. So make that game, charge the same price as other versions of "Guitar Hero," and let's see how it sells. Anyone want to take bets on whether it'll beat the "Aerosmith" version?

Kotick also said that the impact of inclusion in "Guitar Hero" on catalog sales can be so dramatic that "you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse."

Again, I'd be interested to see that plan put into action. Who out there is looking forward to the "Guitar Hero: Bands that were willing to pay us to be included" edition?

Activision Blizzard's analyst day presentation yesterday was over three hours long and I admit I haven't gotten to listen to more than about half an hour so far. Rather than wait for me to have another 2.5 hours free to look for the nuggets of info, here's the relevant news gathered from other reports and analysts who were there:

-There will be a new James Bond game every year going forward. Activision's planning to turn the British spy into one of its trademark annualized franchises. Also, as it does with "Spider-Man," it planning to but out new Bond games regardless of whether there's a new film to tie the game to. Which means it must think its first Bond game, "Quantum of Solace," is pretty good. That game bombing would throw a kink into Activision's plans.

-It's planning to double the number of "Guitar Hero" skus' for next year and triple them by 2010. This year there's a total of four games with 12 sku's that I count (six for Aerosmith, one each for On Tour and Decades, and four for World Tour). So that would mean around 24 versions next year and 36 in '10. If you generously assume a few DS specific titles and that every band/genre related game is on all six available platforms (PS2, PS3, 360, Wii, PC, Mac), you're still probably talking like 4 console games and maybe two or three handhelds next year, with five or six console games in 2010. They can't be thinking that anyone but the most hard core fan will buy every one, but I guess the idea is there are now multiple points of entry to "Guitar Hero" no matter what kind of music you like, what your favorite band is, how you like to play, etc. (MTV News confirms that one of the "Guitar Hero" franchise games coming next year is "DJ Hero," from newly acquired developer Freestyle Games. It was originally being developed for Vivendi Games, which is a nice confluence of events for Activision now that it has merged with that company.)

-The sixth "Call of Duty" is indeed coming from original developer Infinity Ward, but not until 2010. How will we survive through 2009 without a new game? And more importantly, how will Activision survive without one of its biggest franchises? Lots of downloadable content for this year's "Call of Duty: World at War," with exciting new options to pay (more) for it.

-Not that it's news, but in the part I was listening to, ActiBlizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was pointing out that videogames are one of the best values for the entertainment dollar (undoubtedly true) and used as evidence that the typical "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" player is only spending about 52 cents per hours not counting online play. I frankly don't see how that's possible. At $60 per pop, that's around 120 hours of play. The campaign takes like 15 or so hours to play. I would think he was mistaken and meant with online (I guess it's possible the average "Call of Duty" player has spent 100 hours online, given that a hard core minority has easily spent hundreds and hundreds), but he then made a separate point that including online, it's more like 15 cents per hour. So somehow, in a way I'm not seeing, ActiBlizzard really thinks that stat is true.

By now many Cut Scene readers may have seen this cheat code popping around the InterWebs that lets "Rock Band 2" players unlock all 80+ songs in the game immediately without playing the tour. Which is awfully convenient, but demonstrates a fundamental problem: Why should you have to unlock important content by playing a narrative mode in a game that is, in large part, all about social play with friends? I think there's no good answer to that question. It's an outdated conceit that developers need to trash.

The fundamental problem is illustrated in the subhed of the press release that MTV sent out last week to announce the game's release: "Schedule your Rock Band 2 part for Sunday, September 14."

Actually, that's a bad time to schedule your party. I would know, because I had a Rock Band 2 party last Sunday right after I got the game. And most of my guests were kind of annoyed. They wanted to play AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock." They wanted to be "Livin' on a Prayer" with Bon Jovi. They wanted to hear that new Guns N Roses song "Sheckler's Revenge." But when we popped in the game, there were a big fat 20 (or so) games out of the 80+ available. So we started playing band tour. And after three or four hours, we had unlocked only about 20 more songs. Still none of the best ones advertised on the back of the box. But in those three hours, we played Squeeze's "Cool for Cats" so many times that it became a running joke.

"Rock Band 2" is advertised as a great party game. Arguably, that's it's best use -- have your friends over and play (or meet them online). As such, it's incredibly reasonable that when you spend $60 (or more for the controllers), you can expect to have immediate access to all the songs advertised on the back of the box. But in fact, most of them have to be unlocked, very slowly, in the tour.

"Rock Band 2" isn't the only party game with this problem, though I think it's the most extreme. I had a simlar experience when some friends and I popped in Ubisoft's "Rayman Raving Rabbits" and discovered only a few of the multi-player modes were available. "Boom Blox" and "Mario Kart" have the same problem to a lesser extent, since there are at least a good variety of multi-player options available on the first boot-up, but not all of them.

I understand in a single-player game like "The Force Unleashed" (currently on my mind since I was reviewing it for much of the weekend), developers want to keep most of the best abilities locked up at to give players a feeling of accomplishment as they progress. Even in "Rock Band 2," I can understand keeping a few bonus tracks unlockable to reward those who do enjoy touring. But it's not necessary. People who are into the tour will still play it anyway. If they can't be motivated to play unless they have to do it to unlock most of the songs, then maybe the tour's just not that compelling.

My basic point: it's perfectly valid to buy "Rock Band 2" and have zero interest in plowing through the tour, playing some of the same songs multiple times to finally unlock the rest. Lots of people probably want to spend $60, have a bunch of friends over, and make their own playlists from the best of the 80+ songs on the disc. Harmonix is punishing them by insisting that they "accomplish" something first.

As social/party games become increasingly popular, we have to get rid of this concept. People should be able to play every multi-player mode and all of the related content immediately. Anything less is punishing the very casual players that the videogame industry is allegedly trying to reach.

(You can see my review of "Rock Band 2," which is generally positive save for this important point, right here.)

Right now the leaderboards on "Rock Band 2" are pretty barren, since just a tiny number of us reviewers and other industry insiders are playing before launch day. There are only around 100 or fewer bands ranked in most of the online "battles" that I checked out.

But apparently somebody with a copy knows who is poking around the game right now, since I found this rather pointed band name on one of the leaderboards last night: GAME REVIEWERS R A JOKE.

I'm sorry to say Variety won't be running a review of "Rock Band 2" this Sunday as expected, since after reading that I just dropped my drum sticks and cried myself to sleep.

Was there really any doubt this would happen when a TV network publishes a videogame? Variety's Dan Frankel has all the details, or at least the details in a Craigslist casting ad, since MTV and Mark Burnett Productions (which is making the show) won't talk. (Videogamers will of course notice the story is slightly off in saying EA publishes the game, when in fact it just distributes for MTV. Hey, I can't fact check the whole paper!)

The  Xbox 360 price cut that I first said was likely way back in July and has recently been predicted by every videogame blog based on leaked retail circulars is finally official. As expected, it's $200 for the hard-drive free arcade version, $300 for the standard version, and $400 for the Elite with a big ass hard drive. (If I were like a certain other blogger, I'd be yelling "toldja!." But suffice it to say that Cut Scene readers should have been expecting this for almost two months.)

While serious gamers will appreciate the price cuts on the standard version and elite, it's very apparent that Microsoft is emphasizing the new price of the arcade version. The press release is pretty dramatically titled "The Moment Is Now: At $199, Xbox 360 Invites Everyone to Play." But it's the first sentence that really intrigues me:

Imagine if friends and families had the ability to instantly watch movies from Netflix, live out their musical fantasies through "Rock Band 2" (Harmonix/MTV Games) and "Lips" (iNiS Corp./Microsoft Game Studios), star in their own Hollywood classics with "You're in the Movies," or have the power to never miss the latest episode of "Heroes" -- all from one device, starting at $199.

They're selling a videogame console and the very first feature mentioned is streaming movies. The only games mentioned here are all casual titles based on music or movies. In fact, you have to go all the way down to the second half of the fifth paragraph to find even a mention of a non-music or movies game, where Microsoft finally gives a nod to its biggest first party title, "Gears of War 2," which it says will be "the biggest entertainment event of this holiday season." (I expect a few films like "Quantum of Solace" might disagree, but anyway)

There's not a single mention of major non-exclusive titles like "Fallout 3," "The Force Unleashed," "Call of Duty: World at War," etc. Why? Microsoft is apparently betting that most gamers who buy titles like that already at least know about those games and what the 360 offers or, in a worst case scenario, all already own a 360, which would explain the slow sales this year, even around the launch of "Grand Theft Auto IV."

Which is why this release mentions Netflix streaming three separate times (getting even a fraction of   Netflix's 8.2 million subscribers, many of whom probably don't game, would be a major coup for Microsoft), makes a big deal out of "Rock Band 2," "Lips" and, to a lesser extent, non-360 exclusive "Guitar Hero: World Tour," and devotes extensive space to downloadable movies and TV shows.

As Don Mattrick alludes to in the release, the majority of console sales in the last generation generation occurred below the $200 price point. By beating Nintendo and Sony to that mark, Microsoft, which has been mired in third place for console sales all year, is hoping it can get a big boost this holiday season. And it's heavily emphasizing the content it has for casual buyers who might finally be opening their wallets to a videogame system at $200 for the first time.

The three big questions in my mind:

-Can a $50 price advantage make up for the overwhelming public perception that Nintendo's Wii is the console for casual players, not the 360?

-Will those who buy a 360 Arcade be annoyed when they find out the limitations of not having a hard drive? They can't do any of the video downloading that Microsoft touts in its press release, for instance.

-Does Sony need to respond? Sure, there's a good argument that the Playstation 3 is a better deal at $400 than the 360 Elite (it's a Blu-ray player, has built in wi-fi). But right now it's completely and totally ceding the family/casual market to Microsoft and Nintendo. If it does that for too long, its entire business will be staked on the avid gamers, which is not a good place to be, especially given the very broad penetration last generation of the Playstation 2.

Back in May, Variety's Marc Graser reported on "Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner's new company Brett Ratner brands and its first (and as of then, only) client, Activision, for which the firm produced several ads that ran during "American Idol."

At the time, Ratner told Variety that he wants to make movies based on games, and as we've already reported, he's currently attached to Universal's "God of War" adaptation.

Now via MTV Multi-Player, we find out that he had another project in mind: "Guitar Hero: the Movie." Apparently the auteur has been working his connections over at Activision, but to no effect:

I'm trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie.

I think what Ratner meant to say, and what I'm sure Activision is telling him, is why risk making a bad movie? "Guitar Hero" games have grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide and are one of the key franchises on which the entire Activision Blizzard merger is based. The financial benefits of a hit movie are nothing compared to the money the game has made -- and, more importantly, Activision hopes it will make. But the negative impact on the the franchise's public perception if the movie is another "Doom" or "Super Mario Bros." could be pretty severe. So why take the risk?

Plus, Bobby Kotick and the Activision team strike me as pretty conservative business folks who wouldn't at all be tempted by the allure of working with Hollywood just for the sake of getting into a premiere and seeing one of their games on the big screen. Unlike certain other game companies that shall remain unmentioned.

Somebody just sent me this link to a GameDaily story about a new game that is, essentially, "Guitar Hero: Christian Rock."

I'm sure there's enough Christian rock fans out there to potentially make "Guitar Praise: Solid Rock" a hit, though the game will of course be limited by the fact that it only works on PC and Mac and doesn't interface with the "Guitar Hero" or "Rock Band" instruments.

Which got me thinking about how even though MTV and soon Activision are adding new downloadable tracks at a furious rate, they're really just scratching the surface of all the music they could be making playable.

And rather than make a company like Digital Praise come out with its own competing game, isn't there a way to work with them? Assuming they could ensure quality, why not let partners come out with their own special edition of "Guitar Hero" or "Rock Band" with songs curated for an audience they know best, like Christian Rock or kids songs or bluegrass or whatever it might be.

Letting these companies advertise to their audiences that they have their own special edition disc or downloadable track packs would probably sell more copies of either game, thus essentially making Activision and MTV the Microsoft to all these companies' Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, etc. (The hardware-software metaphor doesn't quite work, but you get the picture).

On a related note, how long is it going to be until Disney (owner of Hollywood Records) comes out with some kind of Jonas Brothers videogame, either for "Guitar Hero" or "Rock Band" or maybe for its own upcoming "Ultimate Band?" Music videogames and the Jo Bros are two fads that I bet a bunch of executives are drooling over the possibility of joining together.

When one media company comes out with a successful product that uses another media company's content, you can bet a fight over compensation is coming soon -- especially if the latter media company is a music label.

So just as the music industry went after MTV and peer-to-peer networks and streaming Internet sites and then YouTube, it's now after the videogame industry.

Thus we have Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman recently telling Reuters: ""The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small."

How did Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, whose company publishes "Guitar Hero," respond? "We're introducing a whole new group of artists to new audiences that is resulting in their iTunes downloads being exponentially higher than they would otherwise be, [as well as] new album sales and new merchandising opportunities."

Take the word "games" out of Bronfman's statement and he could easily be talking about musicvideos on MTV or online, songs being used in YouTube clips, streaming Internet radio, etc. It was the same argument over and over. And Kotick's response, essentially that his products are helping to boost music sales by exposing artists to new audiences, is exactly how MTV and Internet companies always responded in the past.

It's worth remembering that the music industry has largely won in the past, either through corporate pressure or lawsuits. On the other hand, the music biz is in really dire straits these days and I think it's pretty undeniable that "Guitar Hero," "Rock Band," etc. are boosting downloads and album sales at least somewhat.

Nonetheless, music labels see a potentially lucrative source of revenue growth at a time when their traditional business is slumping and you can bet they'll be going after a bigger chunk of it aggressively. Especially with more music games coming out in the future ("Lips," "Ultimate Band," a million "Guitar Hero" spin-offs, etc.) you can bet this fight is only getting warmed up.

Writing about "Rock Band" song downloads in the previous post reminded me of something I learned at E3 that I had wanted to write here...

While previewing "Rock Band 2," it occurred to me to wonder whether new track downloads on Xbox Live and Playstation Network after "Rock Band 2" launches will work for both the original game and the sequel. According to Harmonix PR guy John Drake, the answer is a definitive yes. For the foreseeable future, they really are treating "Rock Band' as a platform, which means all new song downloads will work for all version of the game.

There may eventually come a day, he noted, when a "Rock Band" sequel changes enough from the original version that new track downloads can't be coded to work with old versions of the game. But that day appears to be a long way off.

Which is good news, since that day has obviously already come for "Guitar Hero" given the big changes between "Legends of Rock" and the upcoming "World Tour."

Today brought earnings from Viacom (owner of MTV, owner of Harmonix), Electronic Arts,  Sony, and United Business Media (owner of the Game Developers Conference). If you're interested in all the fun details, just click on those names and you can read Variety's entire story (except for UBM, which we don't cover).

But I thought it would be worthwhile to note a few interesting little details from those earnings for Cut Scene readers:

-Viacom says "Rock Band" has now sold 18 million track downloads. That's up from 15 million as of June 30, which means it has sold 3 million in the past month alone.

-Sony's videogame unit is finally in the black with PS3 sales and PSP sales growing and costs for PS3 production falling. Most impressive, however, was PS3 software sales. During the quarter Sony sold 22.3 million game copies, up from just 4.2 million in the same quarter last year.

-There was no mention of "Boom Blox" sales in Electronic Arts' earnings announcement. Though it touted 1.6 million units of "Battlefield: Bad Company" sold and said "UEFA Euro 2008" had a strong launch, EA didn't say anything about "Boom Blox" sales or even tout its good reviews. In a recent interview with John Riccitiello, he said that the game performed as expected and should sell solidly well into the holidays, but it doesn't seem like a strong vote of confidence to not even mention the game when touting achievements during the quarter. (See update below for more info)

-United Business Media, the conglomerate that owns and operates the Game Developers Conference, said GDC revenue was up 16% this year, which certainly fits with the packed feeling at the show and the general sense I and others have that that it's on the rise while E3 is on the decline.

Update: According to GameDaily, I missed in EA's conference call where they said "Boom Blox" has sold 450,000 units so far, which is a perfectly respectable first couple of months for a Wii-exclusive original game. So ignore my somewhat dire analysis above.

...was without a doubt the drums for Konami's "Rock Revolution." Others have commented on whether this drum set is good enough to be remotely competitive against "Rock Band 2" and "Guitar Hero: World Tour," but I'll just say that the noise of these things is truly annoying.

As soon as I walked in the Konami booth, it was like hearing wood snapping against solid plastic over and over and over. It's overwhelming and headache-inducing. For anyone who thought the "Rock Band" drums annoyed the neighbors... they've got nothing on these babies, which sound like you're pounding the wall. Especially at a time when Harmonix is focused on making the drums for "Rock Band 2" quieter, this design is not promising for anyone who won't be playing "Rock Revolution" at a farm where they live alone.

...was definitely Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos standing in the back of the balcony of the Orpheum theater with a big grin all throughout the "Rock Band" concert featuring The Who. (who are, I finally appreciated tonight, just as amazing as my mother and uncle always told me)

MTV unveiled the entire set list for "Rock Band 2" today. You've got the first videogame appearance of AC/DC and Bob Dylan, as well as a debut track from Guns N Roses' new album "Chinese Democracy."

And they revealed that in addition to working with all previous downloaded content, "Rock Band 2" will be able to import "most" of the songs from the original "Rock Band" disc. (Why not all? Hopefully we'll find out)

Check it out:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

	Artist	Song       Title	Decade
1.	AC/DC	“Let There Be       Rock”	1970s
2.	AFI	“Girl’s Gone       Grey”	2000’s
3.	Alanis       Morissette	“You Oughta       Know”	1990’s
4.	Alice in       Chains	“Man in the       Box”	1990’s
5.	Allman       Brothers	“Ramblin’       Man”	1970’s
6.	Avenged       Sevenfold	“Almost       Easy”	2000’s
7.	Bad       Company	“Shooting       Star”	1970’s
8.	Beastie       Boys	“So Whatcha       Want”	1990’s
9.	Beck	“E-Pro”	2000’s
10.	Bikini Kill	“Rebel       Girl”	1990’s
11.	Billy       Idol	“White Wedding Pt.       I”	1980’s
12.	Blondie	“One Way or       Another”	1970’s
13.	Bob     Dylan	“Tangled Up in       Blue”	1970’s
14.	Bon     Jovi	“Livin’ on a       Prayer”	1980’s
15.	Cheap       Trick	“Hello       There”	1970’s
16.	Devo	“Uncontrollable       Urge”	1980’s
17.	Dinosaur Jr.	“Feel the       Pain”	1990’s
18.	Disturbed	“Down with the       Sickness”	2000’s
19.	Dream       Theater	“Panic       Attack”	2000’s
20.	Duran       Duran	“Hungry Like the       Wolf”	1980’s
21.	Elvis       Costello	“Pump It       Up”	1970’s
22.	Fleetwood       Mac	“Go Your Own       Way”	1970’s
23.	Foo       Fighters	“Everlong”	1990’s
24.	Guns N’       Roses	“Shackler’s       Revenge”	2000’s
25.	Interpol	“PDA”	2000’s
26.	Jane’s       Addiction	“Mountain       Song”	1980’s
27.	Jethro       Tull	“Aqualung”	1970’s
28.	Jimmy Eat       World	“The       Middle”	2000’s
29.	Joan     Jett	“Bad       Reputation”	1980’s
30.	Journey	“Anyway You Want       It”	1970’s
31.	Judas       Priest	“Painkiller”	1990’s
32.	Kansas	“Carry On Wayward       Son”	1970’s
33.	L7	“Pretend We’re       Dead”	1990’s
34.	Lacuna       Coil	“Our       Truth”	2000’s
35.	Linkin       Park	“One Step       Closer”	2000’s
36.	Lit	“My Own Worst       Enemy”	1990’s
37.	Lush	“De-Luxe”	1990’s
38.	Mastodon	“Colony of       Birchmen”	2000’s
39.	Megadeth	“Peace       Sells”	1980’s
40.	Metallica	“Battery”	1980’s
41.	Mighty Mighty       Bosstones	“Where’d You       Go”	1990’s
42.	Modest       Mouse	“Float       On”	2000’s
43.	Motorhead	“Ace of       Spades”	1980’s
44.	Nirvana	“Drain       You”	1990’s
45.	Norman       Greenbaum	“Spirit in the       Sky”	1960’s
46.	Panic at the       Disco	“Nine in the       Afternoon”	2000’s
47.	Paramore	“That’s What You       Get”	2000’s
48.	Pearl     Jam	“Alive”	1990’s
49.	Presidents of the       USA	“Lump”	1990’s
50.	Rage Against the       Machine	“Testify”	1990’s
51.	Ratt	“Round &       Round”	1980’s
52.	Red Hot Chili       Peppers	“Give it       Away”	1990’s
53.	Rise       Against	“Give it       All”	2000’s
54.	Rush	“The       Trees”	1970’s
55.	Silversun       Pickups	“Lazy       Eye”	2000’s
56.	Smashing       Pumpkins	“Today”	1990’s
57.	Social       Distortion	“I Was       Wrong”	1990’s
58.	Sonic       Youth	“Teenage       Riot”	1980’s
59.	Soundgarden	“Spoonman”	1990’s
60.	Squeeze	“Cool for       Cats”	1970’s
61.	Steely       Dan	“Bodhitsattva”	1970’s
62.	Steve Miller       Band	“Rock’n       Me”	1970’s
63.	Survivor	“Eye of the       Tiger”	1980’s
64.	System of a       Down	“Chop       Suey”	2000’s
65.	Talking       Heads	“Psycho       Killer”	1970’s
66.	Tenacious       D	“Master       Exploder”	2000’s
67.	Testament	“Souls of       Black”	1990’s
68.	The       Donnas	“New Kid in       School”	2000’s
69.	The       Go-Go’s	“We Got the       Beat”	1980’s
70.	The Grateful       Dead	“Alabama       Getaway”	1980’s
71.	The Guess       Who	“American       Woman”	1970’s
72.	The     Muffs	“Kids in America”	1990’s
73.	The       Offspring	“Come Out & Play (Keep ‘em       Separated)”	1990’s
74.	The       Replacements	“Alex       Chilton”	1980’s
75.	The     Who	“Pinball       Wizard”	1960’s
	Bonus       Artist	Bonus Song       Title	Decade
76.	Abnormality	“Visions”	2000’s
77.	Anarchy       Club	“Get       Clean”	2000’s
78.	Bang       Camaro	“Night       Lies”	2000’s
79.	Breaking       Wheel	“Shoulder to the       Plow”	2000’s
80.	The       Libyans	“Neighborhood”	2000’s
81.	The Main       Drag	“A Jagged Gorgeous       Winter”	2000’s
82.	Speck	“Conventional       Lover”	2000’s
83.	The       Sterns	“Supreme       Girl”	2000’s
84.	That Handsome       Devil	“Rob the       Prez-O-Dent”	2000’s

A few months ago Harmonix sued its former publisher Activision for allegedly not paying it proper royalties for "Guitar Hero III." That suit was dropped presumably to be settled out of court, but now Harmonix is on the receiving end of a music game related suit from one of its past publishers. Ahhh, the circle of life.

Konami, which  published Harmonix's "Karaoke Revolution" games, is suing the MTV-owned developer for allegedly violating its patents related to "simulated musical instruments, a music-game system and a 'musical-rhythm matching game,'" according to Bloomberg. Konami is demanding its fair share of the Benjamins, plus an order preventing Harmonix from using its patents. There's no indication of what such an order would do to "Rock Band' exactly, though I can't imagine it would be an easy fix.

Here's Harmonix's official response, according to Wired:

Konami's actions are extremely surprising. Unfortunately, successful products such as Rock Band can often become targets for baseless litigation. We have substantial defenses to this claim and intend to vigorously defend it.

Comedy.com's Glitch in the System demonstrates how Guitar Hero: On Tour can help you make an ass out of yourself wherever you go:

Today's schwag giveaway... an Aerosmith faceplate for your Guitar Hero controller and "The Art and Making of Star Wars: Force Unleashed" coffee table book, complete with a foreword by Hayden Christensen, who had nothing to do with the game at all but starred in two movies set in the same universe, so you're probably all dying to know what he thinks (hint: his feelings about the game and the book are pretty positive). That aside, there is some pretty amazing art and a few "character cards" as well.

As always, the rules are simple. Each product goes to the first person who leaves a comment:

-Requesting the item

-Leaving your e-mail address so I can contact you

-Expressing genuine interest ("sure, I'll take it" does not compel me to send it to you)

You're not eligible if:

-You won a previous schwag giveaway

-You ask for both items

I wasn't able to go to the demo EA and MTV did for "Rock Band 2" a couple of weeks ago, as I was on vacation (poor me). So you'll have to wait until next week to get my opinion of how it all works in practice.

But for those who are curious, I can share all the key features of the game that are different and, hopefully, better than the original "Rock Band." There doesn't seem to be anything revolutionary here. Basically, it's "Rock Band 1" with most of players' complaints fixed.

-80-plus tracks on the disc, including Foo Fighters' "Everlong," Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away," Journey's "Any Way You Want It," and The Who's "Pinball Wizard"

-all previously downloaded songs are compatible

-all instruments are wireless

-mini-campaigns organized by instrument, artist, album, or genre

-each character can play any instrument (inability to do so was a MAJOR pain in the original "Rock Band")

-Band World Tour can now be done online

-Can switch up instruments and even lose the "band leader" during the tour

-Battle of the Bands, either versus friends' bands or in online contests organized by Harmonix

I don't really have any details at all, but I'm told by somebody involved in promoting it that Microsoft will be debuting "a brand new music/singing game." Given that "Rock Band 2" is an Xbox 360 exclusive (for a little while), I've got to imagine this is a much more casual title and not something that competes with "Guitar Hero" or "Rock Band' too directly.

Since I have so little info, this definitely falls into the "rumors" category, but it comes from a source who seems to know, so it's safe to say something is up with Microsoft and music next week.

Update: Kotaku links to my post and says the music/singing game in question is probably "Lips," from "Elite Beat Agents" developers iNiS. Given what a big fan I am of "Elite Beat" -- I've been playing it a lot recently after burning out on the lame and pointless "Guitar Hero: On Tour" -- that's pretty exciting. And a fun example of collaborative blog reporting. Go team geek journalists!

Activision is in full "Guitar Hero" mode now, continuing to "exploit" the franchise (as Bobby Kotick puts it) with two new spin-offs. Neither is a great success, though our writer Leigh Alexander found that the "Aerosmith" edition is at least "accessible to newbies and a good intro to the band." I had plenty of nice things to say about "On Tour" as well, but I couldn't honestly give it a good review. It's an impressive adaptation of the franchise to the DS, but never gives a good reason as to why you'd want to play "Guitar Hero" on the DS when it's inescapably a non-rocking experience.

Leigh admired the way "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" takes players through many of the greatest venues the band played and uses video interviews to "personalize the experience and get the uninitiated better acquainted." But she was disappointed by the song list (where's "Crazy," "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "Janie's Got a Gun?"). And she's a little annoyed at the inclusion of non-Aerosmith songs and the fact that they're out of chronological order, so that the player doesn't really go through the arc of the band's career. "It feels a bit like the developers were aiming to avoid making a title solely for Aerosmith fans," she observes, "but since players who dislike Aerosmith will surely skip this title regardless, why not go all-out?" Without a lot of challenge, and with only 41 songs for the $60, Leigh says this probably won't appeal to those who have blistered their fingers on "Guitar Hero III." It's more for Aerosmith fans or  casual players who want toget  into the band. You can read her entire review here.

While "Aerosmith" is essentially "Guitar Hero III" with some new art and music, "On Tour" is a new experience. And I think you'd be crazy not to be impressed at how developer Vicarious Visions managed to maintain the fundamental "Guitar Hero" gameplay on the DS with the fret button attachment and the pick used on the touch screen.

But besides $$$$, why? Especially when played in public (as it often is), the DS is just not a device that encourages rocking out. And that's what "Guitar Hero," even more than those falling colored notes, is all about. Fundamentally, "Guitar Hero: On Tour" is just not a "Guitar Hero" experience. It's a spin-off without a good reason to exist.

Not to mention the fact that, inevitably for the DS, the audio quality is significantly lower, the graphics are choppy, the track list is short (just 25 for $50), and finger cramps are frequent. The only thing that works better on the DS is the "guitar duels," since it's easier to launch attacks with the touch screen and there are a few cool challenges designed for the DS, like having to sign an autograph while playing or re-connect a broken string. Of course it's probably notable that the only thing that works better in "On Tour" is the most annoying feature from "Guitar Hero III" and the one that had nothing to do with  music. My whole review is right here.

PS To the person who immediately put a comment on my "On Tour" review calling it "again another shoddy article from Variety," yes, I did accidentally write Axl Rose when I meant Slash and that was online a few hours until an editor caught it. I, ummm, appreciate your high standards.