14 DAY TRIAL // Music games have become extremely important in recent years for many of the companies involved in the industry. They provide many profit opportunities but also the chance to market more than one title per year without risking saturating the market.
That is why we see a lot of franchises like Guitar Hero, Rock Band or Lips making big money off of music-loving gamers all around the world. Almost all of these series are expecting new iterations, with one of the biggest being The Beatles: Rock Band, which will arrive from Harmonix on September 9, this year.
But while many details are known about this game, recently a lot of rumors surfaced regarding the possibility of a special SingStar: Beatles game appearing around the same time. For those of you who don't know, SingStar is a Sony karaoke franchise that is released exclusively on its consoles.
Hearing these rumors, MTV Games and Harmonix, the publisher and developer of the game, have released a statement in which they explain that the rumors aren't true. “MTV Games and Harmonix have the exclusive rights to create music games based on The Beatles per our exclusive partnership with Apple Corps Ltd. Contrary to the rumored reports, there is no Singstar: Beatles software product. There is only "The Beatles: Rock Band" hitting shelves worldwide on 9/9/09 on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii in which players can play as a singing game or as a full band game.”
But don't go thinking that karaoke might not appear in the game, as the company is considering special microphone packs for the release. “We have been working very closely with all of our partners to create various retail promotional opportunities in Europe to support the existing installed base of existing music video game hardware with potential offerings such as 'The Beatles Microphone Bundles.' This follows on our industry leading stance on music game peripheral compatibility as we are always working to ensure cross compatibility across all Rock Band instrument controllers, as well as most Guitar Hero and other authorized third-party music video game peripherals and microphones.”
So it seems that even though there will be no SingStar: Beatles edition, we will get to see a similar mechanic in the final version of the game.