Rock Band Network Will Let Players Create and Sell Their Own Tracks

Music games have gained a huge amount of popularity in recent years, thanks to the huge number of famous tracks that they include in the retail package and what can be added thanks to the use of the DLC method of delivering content over the Internet.

But while the latest full-fledged iteration of the famous Guitar Hero franchise, World Tour, promised to let players create their own songs by using samples and share them with others by using the in-game social network, now the developer of its Arch rival, Rock Band, has announced that the Rock Band Network will be released this year.

This new service will let players record their own music in order to be shared and, most importantly, sold to other users of Rock Band. That's right, thanks to the Rock Band Network and Microsoft's XNA Creator's Club, Xbox 360 users will be able to make some money by using their own design skills.

The user-created tracks will need to match certain specifications from Harmonix and be outfitted with MIDI gameplay information. Before going on sale, the tracks will be reviewed by peers and then placed in store on the network. Authors will then be paid royalties on a quarterly basis depending on how well their creations sell.

This new service will be in closed beta testing until August, when it will presumably enter an open beta stage, before the official store will arrive later this year, complete with its profit opportunities for Rock Band 2 players. Also, while this service will be only for the Xbox 360, certain “stand out tracks” will be available for sale for PlayStation 3 and Wii users of Rock Band 2.

Here's what Harmonix co-founder and CEO Alex Rigopulos revealed: “Our goal with Rock Band has always been to go beyond making music games and create a true music platform. With the Rock Band Network, we've evolved the platform to its next logical step, giving players access to an incredible amount of new music by putting the professional tools we use in the hands of the artists themselves.”

Overall, this new service may seem a bit of a gamble, but if everything goes smoothly Harmonix may have a winning feature against its opposition in the music game genre.