Harmonix Says Rock Band 3 Is Not Yet in Development

Harmonix has unveiled that, at the moment, it is not yet working on Rock Band 3 but that further announcements related to the music franchise might be delivered in the next weeks. This comes after Dhani Harrison, the son of the Beatles musician, stated that he was working on musical instruments, which would appear in the next Rock Band installment that could actually be used by those who are interested in playing real life versions of them.

Dhani Harrison said that “I'm working on Rock Band 3 and making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game. Give me a couple years, it's going to happen.” John Drake, who is one of the main designers behind Rock Band, shot back at a music conference in San Francisco, saying that Harrison was just “speculating wildly” and that he had no involvement in the next Rock Band title, although he was one of the collaborators who created the recent Beatles release.

The official line from Harmonix reads, “we haven't announced any new Rock Band projects - yet. Stay tuned.” There's little doubt that a new title is in development but fans would love to know exactly how it plans to innovate and what new functionality the fresh game might be adding. Instruments closer to reality than ever could be an interesting proposition but some players might be put off by a more complex simulation.

Analysts believe that both Guitar Hero 5 and The Beatles: Rock Band have performed worse than initially expected, pointing to a saturation in the music simulation market, accentuated by the release of the DJ Hero spinoff. For Harmonix and MTV Games, it might pay off to focus more on creating experiences tailored to the most important bands, like Led Zeppelin or maybe even Queen, rather than creating a Rock Band 3, while continuing to out DLC tracks for the previous titles.