E3: Beatles: Rock Band DLC restricted

By Robert Purchese Published 3 June, 2009

Not available to other RB games.

Harmonix creative director Josh Randall has revealed that downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band will not be available for other Rock Band games or vice versa.

The Beatles game is a standalone and separate entry in the series, he told 1UP.

We were given a Beatles: Rock Band extravaganza during the Microsoft E3 conference, comprising a fancy a trailer, a live on-stage demonstration by the Harmonix house band and special guest appearances from Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Star.

"The game is great, the graphics are great, we were great," said Ringo, through his big silly lips.

Abbey Road will be the first album DLC for The Beatles: Rock Band, and Microsoft is offering "All You Need Is Love" on Xbox Live and donating the proceeds to charity.

That's nice, as are the E3 trailer and screenshots for The Beatles: Rock Band.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • loop7 #1 3 years ago

    1st

  • MasterNameless #2 3 years ago

    I'm assuming this means that you can't export the songs for use with other versions of Rock Band then, or vice versa? If that's the case, then thanks, but no thanks. I'm not that much of a Beatles fan.

  • berelain #3 3 years ago

    what bum.

    Might not bother picking this up, just to make a bit of a mini-protest. I was looking forward to it, but I don't *just* want to play Beatles tracks. Why can't I mix and match with my other music?

  • McBradders #4 3 years ago

    @Berelain

    Probably because it has a new vocals mechanic.

    Sure, they could (and should?) patch RB2 to be able to do it, but I guess there is a lot of licensing red-tape too.

  • dsmx #5 3 years ago

    once again music licensing gets in the way of people enjoying music.

  • zabeu #6 3 years ago

    Imagine all the people,
    sharing all the world ...

    Clearly, modern copyright is always representing the best interest of the authors!

  • Toothball #7 3 years ago

    Hmm, that's a pity really. I'll still be getting it though. I sounds like it took a lot of discussion to get this going in the first place. Probably would have taken a lot longer to discuss compatibility.
    Edited by Toothball at 03/06/09 @ 12:33

  • kangarootoo #8 3 years ago

    "Who the fuck listens to the beatles???"

    Well not you obviously, or me for that matter. But millions of people still do.

    Repeated suggestions that The Beatles are not a saleable band are getting old, and have also always been completely wrong.

  • kangarootoo #9 3 years ago

    This will be all about licensing and the Beatles brand and so on. There is nothing technical that could not be overcome.

    We MIGHT see them patch in cross compatability one day down the line I suppose, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

  • Eraysor #10 3 years ago

    Not good. One of the reasons I spend so much time playing RB2 is that it's a huge library of music all in one place.

  • skillian #11 3 years ago

    I'm still amazed that they managed to get the Beatles on board for the game in the first place.

    I'm not surprised there are still a few licensing issues.

  • Rubarack #12 3 years ago

    No sale. I hope this doesn't signal the end of weekly DLC for Rock Band. 1 week Beatles, 1 week Lego Rock Band 1 week Rock Band.

  • Mortey #13 3 years ago

    errrrmmmm......have any of you read about this prior to yesterday????

    It was always going to be standalone......this is not news.....

    I think it will be great personally, I did think it maybe a little simple but seeing the video it looks good..

  • NegativeZero #14 3 years ago

    This isn't news, Harmonix confirmed the game would be stand-alone with no way to copy the tracks across back when they announced it.

  • myiagros #15 3 years ago

    Not supprising, but still disappointing.

    The great thing about RB is the variety of the music available. I can't see me or my friends wanting to play beatles tracks back to back.

    I would love to be able to mix beatles tracks into my existing library, but am not going to be switching out discs to play different tracks from different artists.

    For me it's a no sale until this is resolved due to the shear inconvenience.

  • jonsaan #16 3 years ago

    Well did anyone think it would be?

  • andywilkie35 #17 3 years ago

    This was an instant purchase for me anyway. I thought that after all the effort of signing the Beatles, they wouldn't have made it so that you could download their songs and not buy the game. This was surely always the plan!

  • Ace_McCloud #18 3 years ago

    This is rubbish. Wankers. Now bring out the new drums you dicks, what's wrong with you lot!?

  • kangarootoo #19 3 years ago

    I can understands not putting Beatles songs in their store, but being able to use existing RB DLC tracks within the Beatles game would have been nice. Ce la vie.

  • infoxicated #20 3 years ago

    That's a bit gash, but then after six years of living in Liverpool I'm not exactly in a great hurry to snap it up anyway. Hopefully once they're done working on this we can have a bit more variety in the DLC for the regular version - I've only had it a month or so and already I'm tired of the album-of-the-week format.

  • jaluuk #21 3 years ago

    They just don't get it, do they? The whole idea is clearly so much of an antithesis to what they think people should do with their music that they've decided to licence it up to the hilt.

    The Beatles have no clue.

  • Reihn #22 3 years ago

    @KingsXKing

    First you show up in multiple Alan Wake threads simply to type 'meh' (the game interested you enough to comment though . . . ) and now this gem.

    You are not only an idiot, but an offensive one at that. Goodbye forever.

  • mashk #23 3 years ago

    Will we get the Beatles' solo stuf too? I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 'The Frog Chorus'

  • FortysixterUK #24 3 years ago

    First of all this poster said this....

    KingsXKing 03-Jun-09 12:22:59 Who the fuck listens to the beatles???

    My reply " YOU TOTAL PRICK "

    Next as for the Beatles songs only being played on the beatles game, so what? The grafx for the game will be highly stylised ( like Sgt Pepper, Yellow Submarine etc ) so no, the Beatles music really wouldn't fit anywhere else in the Rock Band genre.....you want to have a guy who looks like the lead singer from the admittedly brilliant Metallica singing " While my Guitar Gently weeps?".
    I. DON'T. THINK . SO.

    But also, I agree with the far more intelligent comment about there beings lots of red tape.....a far more sensible comment.

    This game is a go for me, the whole kit and kaboodle....I can't wait.