14 DAY TRIAL // It's now official. MTV Games is set to publish a game that will feature the songs of the Beatles, but which will not be entitled Rock Band. The game is expected to be released sometime in the last quarter of 2010 and will be developed by Harmonix, which have until now worked, at one time, for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
It might mean that Rock Band will get a big boost in its tight competition with Guitar Hero, which is published by Activision, as both brands scramble to sign as many big bands as possible to their games.
Van Toffler, who is the president of MTV Music, Films and Logo group, stated that “Today we're announcing an exclusive partnership with Apple Corps, MTV Games and Harmonix to create a brand-new video game featuring the iconic music of The Beatles”.
Jeff Jones, the president of the Apple Corps which manages the Beatles music catalog, has noted that for the first time the music of the biggest band in the world would be available in a video game and also added that “in MTV and Harmonix, we see partners that admire the Beatles and Apple's original spirit and vision”.
Alex Rigopoulos, from Harmonix, defined the upcoming title as being “an interactive music-making game [with] interactive performance of the Beatles' music” and said that it had been in development for some time, being built from the ground up, without using the infrastructure created for the Rock Band series. He added that the company was not ready to comment on instruments from Rock Band being used in the new game.
The press announcement also quoted the remaining Beatles' thoughts on the game. Paul McCartney thinks that “The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of The Beatles and their music. I like people having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out” while Ringo Starr adds “It gives me great pleasure to be part of The Beatles / Apple and Harmonix / Rock Band partnership”.