MTV is getting the band back together

Jeff Yapp is an executive V.P. at MTV Networks. He's in charge of the cool stuff, including MTV's virtual worlds strategy and its video game products.

At Under the Radar, he showed off the latest innovations from both groups, including Rock Band, an XBox and PS3 game produced by Harmonix, the company that created Guitar Hero, and that MTV acquired in 2006.

In a demo video at UTR, Yapp showed how Rock Band lets four people team up on guitars, drums, and vocals. I think the drum kit is a new idea for video games, but conceptually it's not all that different from Dance Dance Revolution. The vocal thing is also new: Rock Band scores you for getting the vocal contours right. If you're good, you can have your voice played over the game's built-in audio. If not, just let the pre-exisiting track play while you hum along underneath it.

In the video, the virtual world demos are at the beginning, and Rock Band shows at the end.