Last year, Harmonix set a goal of releasing 500 total tracks to the Rock Band community by the end of 2008. By the end of the year, the rhythm genre innovators had met that goal and then some. Now, Harmonix and MTV are proclaiming that they plan to release as many as 5,000 total tracks for Rock Band by the end of 2009. While this expectation seems like crazy talk, the company certainly has the licenses to pull it off.
In case you’re trying to do the math, that works out to roughly 90 songs per week. However, with how Steve Schnur describes his vision of the industry, it’s quite possible they may start releasing tracks on a daily basis.
"What comes with the success of ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero’ is the microscopic view of what the potential of music in this medium can be," said Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of music and marketing for "Rock Band" distributor Electronic Arts.
"There are other titles that continue to be not just successful, but outsell these games by wide margins," Schnur said. "So the question isn’t, What’s the next ‘Rock Band’? The question is, When can we take the model of a 24/7, day-by-day musical relationship with not only music games, but with every game? I believe this is the year that’s going to happen."
Whether Harmonix and MTV can pull this off is a long way from being seen, but we’re quite anxious to see them attempt it.