Rock Band developer confirms Beatles game

MTV, Apple Corps and Harmonix have announced that they are collaborating on "a brand new videogame featuring the music of the iconic Beatles" due out next Christmas.

Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos said the game was a "dream project", and that it will be a "new, full-blown custom game title production built from the ground up". It won't be a Rock Band game, either - it's a brand new Beatles game.

Jeff Jones, CEO of Apple Corps, added that the Beatles game would span the entire run of Beatles music, though not necessarily include every track, and Rigopulos said that "there will of course be interactive performance of the Beatles music", and that there will be new gameplay elements too.

The parties involved wouldn't say whether there will be new peripherals, but it sounds like it will work with Rock Band kit. Rigopulos said that peripherals that worked with other games - i.e. Guitar Hero - would work with the Beatles game to the same degree they do with Rock Band.

"We want to take players on an experiential journey through the band's history," he said. "A visual exploration of the Beatles' imagery is a big part of this project," Rigopulos said. "With apologies...there's very little that we're ready to say about the game itself."

So it proved, as the parties on the teleconference call refused to answer any questions about platforms, gameplay mechanics. For example, "Interoperability with Rock Band is something we're not ready to talk about yet," Rigopulos said in response to a question about DLC possibilities.

MTV Networks president Van Toffler said, "We're going to provide the ultimate platform for new generations of fans to start their own love affair with the Beatles". He said the game has the blessing of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison. He added that Giles Martin is doing music production - the son of George Martin.

"The thing that we're trying to keep to is for people to play the songs as though they're playing the originals. So we will be adhering to the original mixes my father and the Beatles did, and trying to preserve the sound quality as much as possible," said Martin.

It was later added that this is the exclusive Beatles tie-up for music games. Toffler said we should "stay tuned for details over the coming months".