Rock Band Series
Rock Band is a series of music video games developed by Harmonix Music Systems and MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts for the Nintendo DS, iOS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360 game systems. The series, inspired by Harmonix's previous efforts on the Guitar Hero series, allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can play the lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, and drums parts to songs, as well as sing into a USB microphone. Players are scored on their ability to match scrolling musical notes while playing instruments, and by their ability to match the singer's pitch on vocals.
The first game in the series, Rock Band, was released in 2007 shortly after Harmonix was acquired by MTV Games, and its sequel Rock Band 2 was released in 2008. For 281 consecutive weeks between 2007 and 2013, Harmonix had also regularly provided downloadable content, in the form of additional downloadable songs through consoles' respective storefronts; Harmonix announced that they would discontinue regular downloadable content as of April 2, 2013 as the company moves on to other titles, with the final released song being Don McLean's "American Pie".
Harmonix has also created standalone Track Packs that contain either a selection of downloadable content, or a selection of band-specific songs. The company has also designed the Rock Band Network to allow bands and labels to publish their songs as Rock Band tracks that can be purchased by players.
To date, over 13 million copies of Rock Band titles have been sold netting more than $1 billion in total sales. Over 4,000 songs representing more than 1,200 different artists are available in the franchise library, and over 130 million downloadable song purchases have been made.
Read more about Rock Band Series: History, Gameplay, Soundtracks, Cultural Impact, List of Games, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words rock, band and/or series:
“Nobody dast blame this man.... For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)