Well, this sounds sensible: Harmonix won't be releasing Rock Band 3 this year.
Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos, speaking at a CES conference session Wednesday, said that the company would not release a sequel to its popular music game for the 2009 holiday season. "We've actually made a choice to break out of the annual release cycle for Rock Band this year," Crispy Gamer quoted Rigopulos as saying. "[This is] partly because the annual cycle places limits on the choices you can make as a developer. We're trying to take a long term view."
While not churning out a yearly update to a music game might seem like anathema to some -- I certainly imagine that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick performed an exaggerated spit-take upon reading this news -- it's a smart move. First off, Harmonix already has the biggest game in its company's history, the Beatles title, to worry about. That'll be enough of a challenge for the already-stretched developer.
To add Rock Band 3 to the holiday lineup would mean that Harmonix would probably have to outsource its development, and we don't want that. What we're more likely to see is incremental upgrades to Rock Band 2. Rather than attempt to build a library of songs for a disc sequel, Harmonix can concentrate on just churning out top-quality content for its download store. And as we saw last year with the
addition of the Music Store to the original Rock Band, big feature upgrades are also a possibility.And considering that the so-called "music game glut" may have delivered lower-than-expected sales of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band this year, maybe that's another excellent reason for Harmonix wanting to have just one new game on shelves for Christmas.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Image courtesy Harmonix
