Music downloads should work in games

By Tom Bramwell Published 15 February, 2008

More of Masaya Matsuura's theories.

Record companies will "very soon" start releasing new music in a format that allows users to play with it in games like Rock Band as well as just listen to it.

That's according to Major Minor's Majestic March developer Masaya Matsuura, of NanaOn-Sha, who told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz, "Maybe soon CDs will be gone."

"No one will buy CDs. Everybody will buy the data for the audio by using iPod or something like that.

"If you download the track, certainly you can play the game with this track, but you can also choose the game - so I will choose Musika from NanaOn-Sha or Rock Band from Harmonix, for example.

"This will be very soon, I think," he added.

Obviously he was speaking hypothetically, but it's an interesting idea. He also floated the idea of a special scheme whereby you can buy access to a single song in-game by watching adverts.

Matsuura was speaking at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas (alright for some), where previously he's said that he hopes to see content besides just licensed music in Western music games.

Check in at GamesIndustry.biz for the full interview.

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 (6) Latest comment 4 years ago

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

  • syphaa #1 4 years ago

    Hmmm, I dont think CD's / Vinyl will ever be completely eradicated.
    People enjoy the asthetics of the packaging to much, but more fickle people will, im sure, just end up buying music/film digitally.

    Interesting concept though, would be a good idea to be able to incorporate your own personal music collection into games like Rock Band. Thats the future im sure.

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    Well I prefer to buy my music on CD and then rip them to my PC or PS3 rather than download them, mainly because of some horrid DRM issues I've had on my PC from downloading stuff from Woolworths and 7digital. If I download them then obviously I still have to back them up onto a disc anyway and seeing as music CDs are so cheap these days it's easier to just buy them instead.

  • dazzer05 #3 4 years ago

    Audiosurf lets all music work in it. It can be done on the games side clearly

  • Nithron #4 4 years ago

    Technically yes, you can make the game adapt to the music you're playing. But with something like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, that requires very precise interaction with the music to seem believable, automatically processing the track just doesn't cut it.

    You just don't really notice that it's not very well synced up in Audiosurf because you're not really directly interacting with the music.

  • Ryze #5 4 years ago

    Just hurry up and make it work already. We need the option to buy the tracks that we hear in our games and on our DVDs and digital TV, from within these platforms - the put them painlessly onto the devices we own, such as MP3 player (all brands), mobile phone, Car, and Home stereo.

    We should pay a premium to get the video as well, or to get enhanced / surround sound where available.

    None of this forcing us to rebuy stuff we already bought, just to get it on another device - we'll just go elsewhere and rip it.

    JUST MAKE IT WORK AND WE WILL BUY!

  • urban #6 4 years ago

    what a wank.