September was an interesting month for rhythm gaming. We all know that the Beatles: Rock Band came out towards the beginning of the month. And as much as I try to avoid the subject, we all know there was another popular rhythm game that came out at the beginning of the month, as well.

The Beatles: Rock Band was at the very least an excellent advertisement and example of Harmonix’s dedication to the accurate and entertaining portrayal of a music artist and the related source material. And whether you like her or not, Courtney Love stirred up a hornet’s nest regarding the portrayal of her late husband Kurt Cobain as a playable character in Guitar Hero 5. (It also didn’t help that Kurt’s bandmates Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl agreed with her.)  If we take sales numbers out of the picture, and look at these two examples from a prominent musician’s perspective, it’s really a no-brainer who an artist would prefer to work with.

With all that said, I think this story makes perfect sense. Apparently, according to U2′s bassist Adam Clayton, about a year ago, the band was in discussions with Harmonix to bring their music and likeness to the Rock Band franchise. They backed out at the time, but thanks to the magic created in the Beatles: Rock Band, it looks like they may now be back in.

From Adam:

“We definitely would like to be in there, but we felt some of the compromises weren’t what we wanted.  That could change. I love the idea that that’s where people are getting music, and we’d love to be in that world. We’ll figure something out. What The Beatles have done, where the animation is much more representative of them, is what we’re interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all animation. We didn’t want to be caricatured.”

[Via USAToday]

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