Here’s some clarification on the rumors, or mix-ups, yesterday that Rock Band would be receiving 5,000 songs in 2009. Along the way from Billboard/Reuters to Yahoo News to GameDaily to GamingBits, the info was mis-quoted. Turns out it was an estimated number from Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix, saying that the Rock Band catalog would be expanding “to 5,000 songs or whatever in the coming years.”
Here’s the clarification we received:
“There has been a lot of discussion over a recent article that stated “MTV said it plans to increase the number of available songs this year to as many as 5,000.”
In an effort to clarify and put some context around that number, please see the original quote on ArsTechnica.com from an interview with Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix, during this year’s CES.
In that article, Alex stated:
“That said, one of the great promises of the (Rock Band) catalog moving forward, as the catalog expands from 500 songs to 5,000 songs or whatever in the coming years, is that we’re going to be less constrained from a genre standpoint, and I think you will see us starting to branch out into… whether it’s country or R&B and jazz or funk, or things of that sort. With the critical mass of the “rock” core covered, of course we’ll keep expanding it, but the critical mass is covered, so now we can start to branch off in ways that haven’t made sense in the past but will make sense moving forward.”
So expect more variety in Rock Band tracks in the coming years, but not 5,000 in 2009.
Thanks Danitra!
