The Who: Rock Band next on deck?
(Credit:
glidemagazine.com)
Did you like The Beatles: Rock Band? Are you ready for more? It seems like all you'll have to do is wait until next year, according to Roger Daltry, for The Who. "The game, yeah, yeah, they're going to be doing a Who one next year. There is one planned," says Daltry in an interview with The Republican, a most unlikely source for a bombshell of a gaming announcement like this one.
Tommy isn't exactly The Yellow Submarine as far as family appeal goes, but The Who, like the Beatles, are a classic rock band legend with a large (but not nearly as big as The Beatles) catalog of great music. They also have a great relationship with MTV and Harmonix, having released DLC for Rock Band as well as headlining an E3 Rock Band concert in Los Angeles a few years back, which yours truly attended. It seems like a slam-dunk, except in terms of sales. While The Beatles: Rock Band has performed well, this type of thin-slicing of music games by genre and performer will only serve to micro-monetize an already declining music game industry.
Still, The Who have a visual style (including classic rock operas and films) that's arresting, a necessary prerequisite to match the design of The Beatles: Rock Band and set it above games like, oh, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
Are all bands eventually destined to get their own music games? Is this the future of the music industry flashing before our eyes?
Scott Stein, a New York Jets fan and CNET senior associate editor, has written about tech, entertainment, video games, and viral culture for outlets including Laptop, Wired, Maxim, Esquire Online, Asylum, and Men's Journal. He also appears on the Digital City podcast. In his spare time, you might see him performing improv in New York City (when he's not being a dad). 
--R
- by parallelrhymes October 27, 2009 10:33 AM PDT
- lol @ the main age group of rock band asking "who" these people are
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