'Rock Band 3' Announced for Late 2010 Release
Facebook statuses are rarely, if ever, very informative or newsworthy, but video game developer Harmonix has taken the standard status update and turned it into a bombshell of an announcement: Rock Band 3 is being given a worldwide, holiday 2010 release.
Harmonix, owned by Viacom, is handling the game's development, with MTV Games' publishing and video game giant EA Games handling distribution.
Harmonix became famous for its music mixing game Frequency before creating the Guitar Hero series for Red Octane and Activision. After Harmonix was bought by Viacom, the company left Activision and created Rock Band as a rival, while Activision placed Tony Hawk's Pro Skater developer Neversoft in charge of the third Guitar Hero game with mixed results.
Harmonix promises in their announcement that Rock Band 3 "will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band."
USA Today points out that this announcement comes at a time when music game sales are in a slump. Activision has even announced that it is scaling back production on its Guitar Hero lineup, which recently saw spin-offs in Band Hero and DJ Hero.
It is likely that the new game will feature harmonization, a feature currently exclusive to The Beatles: Rock Band. Though it's likely to be compatible with the same instruments as its predecessors, fans will be eagerly awaiting the announcement of whether Harmonix will enable them to transfer all the previous games' songs to the new one, as Rock Band 2 allowed with the first.
Harmonix is also currently developing Green Day: Rock Band for later this year, a band-specific game similar to The Beatles: Rock Band.
