100 Million Rock Band Songs Downloaded, No RB4 in 2011
After the rocky 2010 Harmonix and their flagship title Rock Band had – and the recent announcement that its previous owner made $114 Million in tax breaks by selling them off – it’s nice to relay some pleasing news. Gamasutra and GamesIndustry.biz are reporting that users have downloaded over 100 Million (100,000,000) Rock Band DLC tracks. This is after the title crossed the 75 Million downloads last October.
According to Chris Rigopulos, VP of Strategy and Business Development, “Nearly 5 million accounts have downloaded a song from the Rock Band catalog.” Interesting to note, though, that song was the Eric Cartman remix of “Poker Face” 85% of the time.* He also added that “Rock Band Network,” the catalog of indie artists, gets about a million visits every month.
That’s good news for the series. People still dig their Rock Band, and just about every track downloaded is money in the bank for Harmonix. Now, here comes the kicker. There will be no Rock Band 4 in 2011.
Taking a page out of the Activision book, Harmonix is deciding to hold off on releasing a brand new title this year and sticking with Rock Band 3 for a while. With people downloading all that DLC and more DLC every week, I don’t blame them. (It also helps that Rock Band 3 was recently discounted to just $19.99.) The company is expected to make an announcement “soon,” my guess being next month at E3.
Sources: Game Informer via Gamasutra, GamesIndustry.biz
