Beatles songs licensed to Rock Band?

By Tom Bramwell Published 30 October, 2008

Press conference this afternoon.

Harmonix and MTV may be on the verge of landing The Beatles for Rock Band.

That's the view taken by "several people familiar with the matter", who spoke to the Wall Street Journal yesterday after MTV and Apple Corps scheduled a press conference for 2pm this afternoon.

Songs have indeed been licensed, the WSJ reported, although "Key details about the Beatles game release couldn't be learned, such as which songs, and from what era of the band's career, are to be included. A release date and price also couldn't be learned."

So far MTV and Apple Corps have resisted attempts to clarify details of today's teleconference with executives, which is scheduled for 7am PST (2pm GMT) and promises an "exclusive agreement to develop [an] unprecedented global music project".

Should Rock Band have landed The Beatles, it will come as another blow for Activision's competing Guitar Hero World Tour, which launched in the US this week and is imminent in Europe. European distributor EA yesterday announced Rock Band 2 launch plans for next month.

We'll let you know when Beatles details are in the open.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DUFFMAN5 #1 3 years ago

    My skin is soaked through to my skin.

  • awb83 #2 3 years ago

    I would consider getting this if The Beatles were confirmed.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #3 3 years ago

    Let it be.

  • andywilkie35 #4 3 years ago

    oh god I hope they announce it'll be most of their back catalogue and will be DLC rather than a "Rock Band: Beatles" game like Activision did when they wheeled out the terribleness of Aerosmith and Metallica. At least Rock Band would be doing it with a band that deserve it
    Edited by 1 at 30/10/08 @ 09:16

  • Erinan #5 3 years ago

    Holy cow.

    That's it.

  • kangarootoo #6 3 years ago

    Well they must be signed musn't they.

    They would hardly annouce a press conference and then say "We wanted the Beatles tracksm but Ringo told us to f*ck off as he was too busy".

  • Ignatius_Cheese #7 3 years ago

    "Pleeeeeease! No. more. autographs after the 20th of October...! Peace&lovepease&love etc. etc."

  • Xedoss #8 3 years ago

    Yesterday, The Beatles still seemed so far away. Now it's possible we get to play. A song that's called "Yesterday" .

    I'll probably get this if released.

  • kangarootoo #9 3 years ago

    I should say, despite my cheeky reference, I think Ringo was perfectly entitled to advise "fans" that he wouldn't be signing stuff anymore.

    People buy Beatles songs because they like the music, not because of some sense of charity. Ringo is an old dude in his seventies who just wants to relax, and frankly he doesn't owe anybody anything. He may even be suffering an illness that makes it painful to do a lot of writing (complete suppositionm by me I might add, and probably not true), but he rightly didn't feel like airing his medical records in public, so he just said he is busy.

    His money didn't fall off a tree, it came from making music that people wanted to buy. Anybody who got grumpy with him for no longer inflating the value of their tat by adding his signature to it FOR FREE is no fan as I understand the word, but is rather a selfish bullying shit (not suggesting you are said bullying shit Ignatius_Cheese).

    I have spoken :)

  • kinky_mong #10 3 years ago

    Good news but I wouldn't get too excited because going by most other big acts on these games they'll choose the cheaper less well known songs rather than the crowd pleasers *still bitter about two of favourite tracks from Nevermind being left off the track pack*

  • Stu #11 3 years ago

    Please please me.

  • ParmaViolet #12 3 years ago

    @andywilkie35

    'oh god I hope they announce it'll be most of their back catalogue and will be DLC rather than a "Rock Band: Beatles" game like Activision did when they wheeled out the terribleness of Aerosmith and Metallica. At least Rock Band would be doing it with a band that deserve it'

    First off - how do you know that GH: Metallica is going to be 'horrible'?

    Secondly, I don't really see how any band on this level is more or less worthy? - I mean, where do you draw the line?....per millions of albums sold?, concert tickets sold? - I think that you'll find that Metallica were chosen for their own title based on the fact that they were most likely the most requested band out there for GH (most likely only second to Zeppelin).

    The bottom line is - buy it if you like it, don't buy it if you don't.

  • Lebowski #13 3 years ago

    Do you think Ringo will sign my Les Paul guitar if I post it to him?

    Give Peas a Chance.

  • sailesh #14 3 years ago

    hopefully the hidden gems will be there rather than the well known ones. i like the zaney beatles stuff (^_^)

  • kinky_mong #15 3 years ago

    First off - how do you know that GH: Metallica is going to be 'horrible'?

    Probably based on the assumption that it will contain Metallica songs.