Matsuura wants custom Rock Band tracks

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 February, 2008

PaRappa creator after more than licenses.

NanaOn-Sha's Masaya Matsuura would like to see Rock Band developer Harmonix open up its game so that people can use their own music.

"I really want them to open the format, of the audio files. So that people can make their own game course with their own track, and download it or upload it to a game console, and share with each other, or sell it to each other," Matsuura told Wired at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas.

"If they can make that kind of progress, it would be great. These are the kinds of possibilities I'm imagining."

Rock Band of course relies on licensed music like Radiohead, Nirvana and The Killers to power its multi-instrument game mechanics. However, if customisation is what Matsuura is after, he might want to check out Audiosurf, which is a rhythm-puzzler that works with your MP3 collection. It's due to be released on Steam this Friday.

Or he might want to wait for Harmonix's other project, which does similar things.

Matsuura - whose past work includes PaRappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon, and who is currently working on Major Minor's Majestic March - had been speaking at the DICE Summit and talked to Wired alongside his friend Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

That's Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Rez and Lumines fame, of course, and the two offered some insight into their professional relationship. "I really think that Mizuguchi-san and I are driving on a highway at high speed," said Matsuura. "Of course, we are not competing. But it's midnight, with no other cars on the highway. So sometimes, I feel sleepy. But Mizuguchi-san drives past me really quickly, and I think, 'Oh! I have to wake up.' And I start chasing Mizuguchi-san, and sometimes I'm going faster than him and he's sleeping, and I drive past him, beep-beep!"

At least their games are good.

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 (8) Latest comment 4 years ago

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

  • erp #1 4 years ago

    Bonkers.

  • Dafridge #2 4 years ago

    It will never happen because they generate so much additional money from additional DLC track packs. If they opened it up so we could use our own music no one would buy the DLC!

  • Markusdragon #3 4 years ago

    You'd need separate drum, guitar, bass, vocal, and rest of the song tracks for every song you did. It just wouldn't be feasable.

  • Bezzy #4 4 years ago

    "At least their games are good."

    hahah. That made me laugh.

    To be clear: Not in the "Hahaha are you joking?" sense, but in the "hahah, yes i agree!" sense.

  • foamy #5 4 years ago

    "You'd need separate drum, guitar, bass, vocal, and rest of the song tracks for every song you did. It just wouldn't be feasable."

    If it's user made, of course it's feasable. Take for example Frets on Fire, where the musics are customized for the games by users.

  • Zaelsius #6 4 years ago

    There is no way Harmonix will open Rock Band to user-created songs, at least not in the foreseeable future... since that would mean make their own DC packs and songs less attractive. Also, I prefer it the current way, because 95% of user-created tracks usually suck, call it DDR, Frets on Fire or whatever...

  • Zomoniac #7 4 years ago

    You'd need separate drum, guitar, bass, vocal, and rest of the song tracks for every song you did. It just wouldn't be feasable.

    And if you had them, which I do, then it would be fine.

  • NewYork #8 4 years ago

    "At least their games are good."

    Aww, so cruel!