MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Click here to access the RETAIL BIZ Previews section, where you’ll find our definitive guide to a range of recommended games set to hit retail over the next few months. This week we rock out with EA and MTV Games’ Green Day: Rock Band, the latest in a line of …
Read More »Green Day more suited to RB than Beatles
MTV Games boss Scott Guthrie believes that Green Day: Rock Band is a better fit for the franchise’s audience than last year’s Beatles tie-in. Guthrie says sales of the Beatles game weren’t as high as hoped. We were pleased with the performance of Beatles: Rock Band but we were expecting …
Read More »MTV ready to Rock Europe
MTV Games is establishing a new base in Europe – and the entertainment giant has told MCV its local team will dethrone Activision as the territory’s No.1 publisher in the lucrative music games genre. The firm has hired former THQ exec Roy Campbell to head up its international business and …
Read More »Rock Band 3 announced
Rock Band 3 has been officially revealed by developer Harmonix, with a worldwide release scheduled for Q4. An update on the game’s Facebook page said: Rock Band 3 will be published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts, and will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just …
Read More »MTV making Natal title
Though the noise about Natal continues to increase, concrete details concerning the range of titles expected for launch remain under wraps – but the first hints of what we might be able to expect emerged from a London-based press event last night. SiliconRepublic reports that a Microsoft rep confirmed a …
Read More »Viacom seeking Rock Band refund
With falling sales of Rock Band blamed for a three per cent year-on-year decline in sales for Harmonix owner Viacom, the company has said that it wants a partial refund of bonuses paid to the developer in 2008. Viacom enjoyed strong profits of $694m for the quarter ending December 31st, …
Read More »Has EA given up on Rock Band?
Conspicuous by its absence in EA’s forward planning for the financial year ahead was any mention of the once golden franchise that is Rock Band, leading to speculation that the publisher could be looking to drop its distribution agreement for the game. Furthermore, with the end of its current deal …
Read More »US: Beatles pips Guitar Hero
Numbers from US mag Advertising Age claim that The Beatles: Rock Band outsold rival Guitar Hero 5 in North America in 2009, thanks in part, the publication claims, to Viacom’s skilled use of one of music’s key IPs. MTV’s Rock Band tie-in sold 1.18m units in the territory throughout the …
Read More »Best of music genre yet to come
The creators of market rivals Guitar Hero and Rock Band have insisted that the future is bright for the music games genre, with the rising prominence of user-created content driving continued success. Throughout 2009 sales of music games fell by nearly 50 per cent to $1bn in North America. I …
Read More »Beatles: Rock Band sales hit 1.7m
Global sales of MTV’s The Beatles: Rock Band now stand at 1.7m, four months after it was first released on September 9th 2009. That’s according to the LA Times, which reports that Viacom’s executive VP of games Scott Guthrie is pleased with the holiday sales, though he noted that some …
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