Harmonix: Rock Band can go on and on

By Fred Dutton Published 8 October, 2010

Plus, dev hints at Amplitude sequel.

There are plenty of new places to take the Rock Band franchise in the next five years, developer Harmonix has insisted.

Rock Band 3, due later this year, adds a keyboard but that's not the end of the road for the series. CEO Alex Rigopulos told Edge that the studio is only scratching the surface.

"There's a lot of creative terrain to explore with Rock Band: new forms of interaction between the player and the music. We still have some very exciting things planned."

Bring on the 21-stringed Malian kora, we say.

Sales of music games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero plummeted a whopping 46 per cent in the US last year, prompting talk that the two franchises were played out.

Rigopulos also hinted at an impending return to two of the studio's earliest games – PlayStation 2 titles Frequency and the excellent Amplitude.

"We loved those games and of course have been focused on other areas in recent years. Rock Band's been focused on rock music, Dance Central has the luxury of focusing on all kinds of other music, but in terms of rhythm-action-type games focused on electronica, that's something we'd love to come back to at the right moment in time. Or something completely new focused on that style of music."

Rock Band 3 arrives on DS, PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 29th October.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (9) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • yupyup #1 2 years ago

    "Rock Band 2 added drums"

    Drums have been there since Rock Band 1.

    Anyway, hard to imagine them being able to fit any more instruments in on screen, 5 is pushing it on most tv's to be fair. Still looking forward to RB3 after having played it at the expo.

  • Spekingur #2 2 years ago

    It might detect up to 5 instruments but you could change out the types of instruments as needed. Plus, if you are playing on diffirent consoles you would only have one instrument on the screen.

  • Lusterpurge #3 2 years ago

    Wasn't it always the fear that they would just keep adding more and more instruments? I still play music games, but I only play songs on the guitar, nothing else. I set a limit long ago that I would not buy more than 2 instruments for these games.

  • paulf #4 2 years ago

    two words

    pro mode

  • Skinme #5 2 years ago

    Shouldn't that say "Harmonix: Rock Band can go on and on"? I know this is the internet, but a little proof reading wouldn't go amiss Mr Editor :-P

  • asphaltcowboy #6 2 years ago

    Despite loving the Rock Band franchise, RB3 will actually be my first Rock Band purchase. I picked up the super-cheap, pretty shifty RB1 drums this week in anticipation (£10 in store at HMV)!

    Slightly concerned that they'll try and add more instruments... can't see how it would work. And frankly I don't have the money or space for more than 1 guitar and 1 drum set.

  • Toothball #7 2 years ago

    Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP was a good re-visitation of the Frequency and Amplitude mechanic. I'd definitely be interested in a follow up in the electronic direction. Presumably it'll be called Wavelength if they keep the same pattern.

  • Gromit #8 2 years ago

    I'm up for a bagpipe and noseflute edition.

    Your power metre could fill up with successive notes hit and crush the cekebrity of your choice.
    There could then be celebrity downloads - ant & dec, richard madeley, george osbourne, jordan etc

  • kongzi #9 2 years ago

    hahaha a keyboard.. is that gonna divide up the Rock Band community? Like the real die hards are not gonna consider Rock Bands with keyboards real Rock Bands? Fuck yeah I wanna be there...

    Rock Band: Kraftwerk edition
    verdammt ja!