Rock Band Network beta begins today

By Robert Purchese Published 19 January, 2010

Create, share, sell your own songs.

Harmonix has confirmed today's opening of the Rock Band Network beta - the service that will allow anyone to create, share and even sell their own songs for the game.

This will only be available on Xbox 360 to begin with as Microsoft has been a key partner in realising the service. However, PS3 support is part of the larger plan.

The announcement comes by way of a Wall Street Journal report, a date in which was later confirmed by a Harmonix member of staff.

The Rock Band website will therefore be offline between 5pm and 10pm GMT. Once the service reappears you'll need to create a new user profile for the Network or merge your existing details with it. And Harmonix notes that there may be some teething problems, so be patient.

"[Today's] update marks the beginning of open beta. Throughout the last few months, I've been continually impressed with all of your participation and cooperation. I deeply appreciate your patience, humour, intelligence and effort," wrote Harmonix developer "HMXMister_Game".

"I know that you will welcome all the new members with the same helpful attitude that has gotten us thus far. I've said this before, but I'll say it again: you guys should be proud of the community you have built.

"Thank you. Tomorrow is a brand new day."

Harmonix hopes unsigned bands will share and sell music on the Rock Band Network. But there are hurdles to overcome, such as a complicated preparation procedure for each song.

Outsourcing this task to specialists will cost, and with songs priced between $0.99 and $2.99, a band must be confident of sales to take the plunge. For those reasons, the Rock Band Network may be dominated by established acts and bands to begin with.

Sub Pop, a US music label, will offer 25 artists including the Shins, Flight of the Conchords and Mudhoney. Sub Pop was Nirvana's label once upon a time.

"At $3 a piece nobody's looking to Rock Band as a discovery tool," Tony Kiewel, Sub Pop bigwig, predicted to the Wall Street Journal. "That's not going to happen."

Give it a try. Let us know what you think.

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.

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

You may also like...

Comments (10) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • kangarootoo #1 2 years ago

    Interesting stuff, but the feeling in the linked articles is that the financial risk may be a problem for unknown artists (getting a song prepared sounds costly if you can't do it yourself).

  • ignatiusjreilly #2 2 years ago

    Sub Pop and Rock Band? Bloody hell.

    90s me could never have predicted that one.

  • itsgood2slide #3 2 years ago

    I have my fingers crossed for No Culture Icons by the Thermals and Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks by the Rapture...

  • Slipstream #4 2 years ago

    Very interesting concept. I'll be watching to see how this pans out.

  • mechamonkey #5 2 years ago

    I've been praying for some Mudhoney since the original Guitar Hero :) bring it on.

  • Eraysor #6 2 years ago

    Rock Band parties are going to be even more epic with added Conchords.

  • MrChuckles #7 2 years ago

    I have a couple of mates who are in bands... And i'm a rock band expert... Hmm, maybe it's time we worked together and i stuck some of their songs up there, see if i can get a cut.. hehe....

  • Zomoniac #8 2 years ago

    How hard is it exactly? I'd have thought it was simply a case of having five master audio tracks (guitar, bass, drums, vocals and "everything else in the song";), then doing 3/4/5 note MIDI parts for each of the three instrument tracks for each difficulty and typing in the lyrics. Would take quite a while to do by hand but not especially 'hard' as such. Is there a way of moving it from your computer to the 360 to test it out before uploading to the store?

  • MrChuckles #9 2 years ago

    @Zomoniac - Yeah, that's what i'd think, and i'd assume you could preview it or maybe even let it get downloaded to free to one xbox.. One hopes... Mind you, as the article says you need an xbox to develop it, i assume you must be able to play it on there before release?

  • RobotRocker #10 2 years ago

    @ Zomoniac/MrChuckles

    If you have the 360 RB2, you can export the track to Audition mode under the extras menu to preview the track. You might need XNA thouggh (And you will need it to upload to RBN).

    And bands would have to be insane to price at 240 points. If 160 is good enough for The Beatles. Its good enough for you.