What’s that, Viacom? Harmonix can’t hear you over all the money they’re making. 

Not even a year out from the sale of Harmonix from Viacom, things are looking quite a bit different than they this time last year. While many places around the blogosphere were posting (erroneous) news at the time that “Harmonix was sold for only $50,” it seems like Harmonix may be having the last laugh. With the advent of the Microsoft Kinect, Dance Central appears to be their new cash cow, with the first title selling over 2.5 million copies, and the sequel just recently released.

Business and financial news agency Bloomberg recently reported that according to Harmonix COO Florian Hunziker, ”2011 will be the most profitable year Harmonix has ever recorded,” and Hunziker expects over $100 million in net profit for the 200-employee company.  More amazing is that the $100 million number is profit, not revenue. (Accounting 101: Profit is the money you have after you pay all your expenses.)

[UPDATE: Damn. I had a feeling this was coming. Just touched base with @HMXHenry, and he let me know that the "$100 million" number quoted SHOULD be revenue, and not profit. I had a feeling that was too good to be true. $100 million in REVENUE makes much more sense, but is still a VERY impressive number.]

So what does this mean for Rock Band? Even if the DLC model wasn’t profitable (even though it is), Harmonix has stated several times that they are still committed to the Rock Band franchise, and having the ability to infuse capital from one franchise to the other is an excellent sign of things to come.

One other little nugget of information I found interesting in the Bloomberg article was around the future of music licensing costs:

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan estimates that on average 20 percent of the wholesale price of a Rock Band game has historically gone to pay licensing fees. Now that Guitar Hero is no longer bidding for the same music as Rock Band, he expects those fees to come down. 

The article also mentioned that Harmonix is working on “multiple new music games that won’t resemble Rock Band or Dance Central.” Interesting…

[via Bloomberg]

Yesterday, the folks from Harmonix set up a livestream from the infamous “Star Chamber” to both play Halloween-themed Rock Band songs, as well as address a number of DLC requests random questions from fans via Twitter, the RockBand.com forums, and the live chat. While most of the answers given were either information we’ve already known, or confirmation of some commonly-held assumptions, there were a few interesting takeaways.

I think the biggest thing that had people talking after the fact was that the songs from the Country Track Pack 2 will be released “soon,” and will include Rock Band 3 features, unlike the exported version, which lacks the keys parts (where rarely applicable). The handful of Rock Band DLC completionists will find this frustrating, but to everyone else, this means they can finally get Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.

Someone asked about why, unlike DLC for other games, Harmonix doesn’t include achievements with their DLC. John Drake commented that there is an odd achievement to price ratio that the consoles require, and that new DLC for Rock Band will not contain new achievements. Similarly, there are no plans to introduce new goals or challenges with new DLC for Rock Band 3.

With regards to Rock Band Pro, John mentioned that there are no plans for “lesson DLC,” nor are there plans to produce a Rock Band Pro guitar with a whammy bar.

If you’ve been a fan since the beginning, you may recall seeing a Rock Band demo video that featured Guns N Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” While John couldn’t give specifics (so read between the lines here, people), he mentioned that “certain members may have been exclusive to other games” at the time, and that when communication with the “band” opened up during negotiation around the Chinese Democracy track and later DLC, issues between the former band members prevent the older tracks from making it into the game.

And as for the “URL hacking” on RockBand.com that occasionally bears fruit, while John has mentioned on podcasts to “knock it off,” @HMXHenry commented that it is a “minor inconvenience.”

Finally, and I had to step away a few times during the livestream, I heard @HMXHenry say that there are NO band-specific titles currently planned, but I also thought I heard them say something else about what is coming our way. I thought I heard John say that there will be no “Rock Band 4 soon,” but there will be a Rock Band title in 2012. Can someone confirm that, or was I imagining that part?

Random technical difficulties and occasional audio lag issues aside, it was pretty entertaining, both from the value Harmonix provided, as well as with “the chuckleheads” in the live chat. Harmonix has mentioned that they will probably do more of these in the future, and it is interesting to see an interactive back-and-forth between the fans and the developers.

Oh, and also…

Arriving in the Rock Band library this week is a three-pack from alternative metal musicians Breaking Benjamin, as well as an additional single from Papa Roach. Below are playthrough videos of the DLC from the always awesome thenewnoelisoncruz. Definitely check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel!

Links to purchase DLC songs online at Xbox.com are included below for each track. All individual tracks are 160 MSP ($1.99). The Breaking Benjamin 3-pack is available for 440 MSP ($5.49). Pro Guitar/Bass charts are noted below where applicable, and can be purchased for an additional $.99. Playthrough charts for Pro Guitar/Bass will be posted tomorrow.

Directly below is a playlist of all the DLC videos, followed by individual videos of each DLC track after the jump.

Playlist of all new DLC:

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the DLC for next week.

• Breaking Benjamin – Breath *
• Breaking Benjamin – Sooner or Later
• Breaking Benjamin – Until the End
• Papa Roach – Forever

 * Denotes Pro-Guitar/Bass chart availability for $.99.

[Official announcement]

 Unless otherwise noted, all songs are $1.99.

• Conditions – Better Life
• Emery – Scissors
• Heywood Banks – Toast (Live) *
• Myrath – Madness
• Suicide Silence – You Only Live Once

* Denotes $.99 track.

ROCK BAND NETWORK 11/1 PS3 PLAYLIST

[Official announcement]

Unless otherwise noted, all tracks are 160 MSP ($1.99). Songs not yet linked below will be included once RockBand.com has been updated.

• A Day To Remember – 2nd Sucks
• A Day To Remember – 2nd Sucks (2x Bass Pedal)
• A Day To Remember – If It Means a Lot to You
• Active Knowledge – Reality Down
• Between the Buried and Me – Selkies: The Endless Obsession
• Between the Buried and Me – Selkies: The Endless Obsession (2x Bass Pedal)
• The Bloody Five – Never Again *
• The Boyscout feat. Amanda Somerville – Blood Red Rose
• Glenn Case – Sweet Canadian Mullet *
• Halcyon Way – Death of a Dream *
• JOANovARC – Sisters
• Jocko of Sha Na Na – The Monster Stroll
• Mega64 – My Name’s Horatio, You Got Me, You Ain’t Got Nobody Else, So Deal With It, And Love It *
• New Nobility – Galactic Love
• Powerman 5000 – Show Me What You’ve Got
• Without Mercy – CMDUC

* Denotes 80 MSP ($.99) track.

ROCK BAND NETWORK 10/27 XBOX 360 PLAYLIST

[Official announcement]