When last we covered details of MTV Games and Harmonix's ambitious Rock Band Network, we reported that the service would go live in November. It's not there yet. Today, MTV provided Kotaku an update.
The Rock Band Network is a service that allows people to turn listenable music into music that is playable in Rock Band, empowering any musician or fan with the proper rights to expand the Rock Band music library and make some money off sales to gamers of the songs they work on. The Network is currently in closed beta.
The November launch of the service on the Xbox 360 that was suggested by Harmonix to Kotaku this past summer isn't happening.
An MTV Games spokesperson broke down the current roll-out plan:
"We're working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still TBD. The tools necessary for bands to start authoring and prepare their content for review are already live on Creators.rockband.com/tools/download. The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place. People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch."
So the closed beta continues and it sounds like it will open up to the rest of the public by New Year's. If you want to buy the songs people are coding, however, you'll need to wait until 2010.
The RBN is planned for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Originally, the 360 version was supposed to launch first. There was no word today about whether that is still the plan.
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