Pete_LeGrant July 20, 2009 PC, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 9 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Rock Band is now providing a way for up and coming bands to get their music out to the masses. Bands will be able to submit their own music to the Rock Band Network for approval and subsequent distribution in the store. Add your band’s music to the ever-growing Rock Band catalog.

Here’s what details the press release provides.

The Rock Band Network will launch as an open beta in late August 2009
in the U.S. and provide a sophisticated toolset, with detailed
documentation on how bands can begin the process of authoring songs
into Rock Band gameplay files. Authors will be able to submit tracks
for playtesting and peer review via a specialized Web site,
Creators.RockBand.com. Potential publishers will need a membership to
Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online in order to test and publish game
content. The service will only be available to those who purchase a
premium membership to Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online, which can
be purchased for four months at $49.99 or for a year at $99.99.

Once tracks are approved, they will be transferred to the Rock Band
Network Store, an in-game music marketplace where millions of Rock Band
fans will be able to demo samples of the songs for free before they
purchase. Songs will debut exclusively on Xbox 360 for 30 days. Artists
featured in the store will be able to choose from multiple pricing
tiers for individual tracks and will be compensated via a simple
payment system that provides automated accounting and regular royalty
payments.

This is great news for bands. I imagine there will be quite a rush to use this service.

In other news:

• EA Bringing 10 titles to Comic-Con