Last year, MTV and developer Harmonix introduced the novel idea of a Rock Band Network, which essentially opens up the entire Rock Band platform to user submitted songs and could potentially lead to an iTunes-like revolution for the music video game space. Today, that Rock Band Network has officially opened to the public in beta form. A Rock Band Network Music Store will be launched soon, allowing musicians, publishers and record labels to promote and sell their original recordings as playable Rock Band tracks.
The tracks are built on Microsoft's XNA platform, and as such, the Rock Band Network is very much focused on the Xbox 360. All songs are exclusive to the Xbox 360 for 30 days and only a "selection of standout tracks" will be made available for PS3 and Wii.
“We are excited to democratize the Rock Band platform and expand the music discovery experience to the greater music community with the Rock Band Network,” said Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix. “We believe this will be great for fans, music lovers, bands and the music industry as a whole.”
"The Rock Band Network opens the Rock Band universe to musicians at any stage of their career, empowering them to release the songs they choose, on their timetable, via our proven music distribution platform," added Paul DeGooyer, Senior Vice President of Electronic Games and Music for MTV Networks Music Group. "It is a high-value business proposition that features powerful promotional impact for artists and songwriters, while at the same time adding real sales to their bottom lines."
Here's how the song submission process works, according to Harmonix:
"Artists who submit songs for the Rock Band Network Music Store will be able to choose from multiple pricing tiers for individual tracks and receive a royalty of 30 percent of the retail selling price (excluding tax) for every track purchased through the RBN Store. Before they are approved to be sold, songs are submitted to http://Creators.RockBand.com. The author submits the song to one of two areas: Playtest, where the community delivers feedback on a work in progress track, or Peer Review, where a revised song goes when it is considered a final draft and ready to be posted for sale. Once in Peer Review, songs are tested for playability and checked to check for violations of XNA Creators Club Online community standards (vulgarity, adult content, legal concerns, etc.). Peer Reviewers have the unique opportunity to play Rock Band Network content for free, well in advance of a track’s commercial release. These fans can help shape the track’s final form, rating how fun and challenging the authoring is, and helping flag issues to make the song the best it can be. Anyone who owns Rock Band 2 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, can join the Playtest and Peer Review processes by purchasing an XNA Creators Club Online Premium membership through http://creators.xna.com/membership."
MTV is hoping that Rock Band Network can capitalize on some of the momentum gained from the success of The Beatles: Rock Band and reinvigorate the music space. Although the music genre was down 46% last year in the U.S., The Beatles: Rock Band did manage to outsell Activision's Guitar Hero 5 worldwide, 1.7 million units sold versus 996,000 units, according to the L.A. Times. Still, when you consider that the previous Guitar Hero sold over 3.4 million copies, it's clear that the music genre has declined precipitously.
