Rock Band Network To Enter Open Beta Today
The Rock Band Network was announced in July of last year, and since that time, Rock Band fans and music fans alike have been waiting for the day when the RBN Music Store goes live. While not yet live, Harmonix will be tentatively taking another giant step towards making this reality by opening up the beta to everyone later today.
What does this mean to you? Very soon, you can go to the creators.rockband.com and check out the current tracks in development, in peer review, or approved and waiting for the RBN Music Store to go live.
This article from the Wall Street Journal was sent to me from @Toymachinesh last night talks about the forthcoming RBN, and some of the bands currently committed to submitting music. I’ve listed some of the more major artists below that have already been announced, but the WSJ article was the first mention that Creed will be featured on the RBN. And Destructoid has also spilled the beans that Billy Idol will be also be featured.
- Evanescence
- Creed
- Billy Idol
- All That Remains
- The Stills
- Ministry
- The Shins
- Flight of the Conchords
- And Sub Pop Records is committing approximately 25 songs
I’ll update this post when the the beta is open up to everyone, so you can have a look! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the current state of the RBN, so feel free to leave your thoughts below.
UPDATE: As for the public go-live for the Rock Band Network Music Store, there is still no firm date, but according to comments made to Destructoid, the finalised Rock Band Network Store won’t be live “until we accrue a good base of content, though we’re already really excited by what we have in the pipeline.”
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I’m so pumped about this! Best get some MSP ready.
Need… Amberian Dawn.. now!
SaikoSakura Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Soon love. Both songs have been approved and are waiting for store launch.
Wetting self in 5… 4… oh, wait, plenty of time to go to the toilet. BRB.
Hopefully I’m home in time for it to start, I’ve got class tonight
Simon Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Thanks for the update, I was originally under the impression that we would see something new in RB2 itself. This is still pretty awesome.
That looks totally awesome. Cant wait to see what the RBN is like
Oh Man… I’ve never been so excited to hear news about Creed…
If you don’t have a full XNA account you cannot view, download or review songs. For most of you there’s nothing to see.
Thanks for clearing that up. So as a PS3 player I bet it’s gonna be even longer wait, as usual?
RockBandAide Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Unfortunately, yes. Sony’s integration with the independent game development community isn’t like Microsoft’s. Even though the PS3 patch integrates the RBN Audition ability, I’m not even aware of any way to playtest on song on the PS3. I don’t think it’s even close to as easy as it is on the Xbox 360.
Unfortunately the same holds true for PS3 players. Without a full XBOX XNA account you cannot view content. The RBN Store was enabled in the latest update. We have no idea *when* it’ll open or *what* will be there. Will it open on PS3 and XBOX 360 simultaneously? I wish I knew this myself.