In an interview last week with industry site MCV, MTV Games’ executive vice president and general manager Scott Guthrie got surprisingly candid about the present and future of the Rock Band franchise. Among the more interesting quotes:

The Harmonix development team are working on what is effectively the next game, or ‘Rock Band 3.’ We aren’t standing still – we will keep moving into new areas and look at new technologies that our platform holder partners are also developing, such as Project Natal from Microsoft.

Project Natal, in case you’re not up to speed on upcoming gaming tech, is the camera-based motion-control interface Microsoft showed off at this year’s E3. It’s supposed to offer extreme precision with detecting 3D movement; with the kind of motion-detection Microsoft is promising, one could theoretically, say, play virtual drums simply by holding a pair of drumsticks and flailing about in the air. Theoretically.

Anyway, there’s lots more to the interview, including some musing on the sales “downturn” I talked about previously, so go check it out.

[Read, via Joystiq]