What the what? A demo of Green Day: Rock Band that appeared this morning in the Xbox Live Marketplace contains what appears to be a not-so-subtle hint at a new instrument we can expect in Rock Band 3: Keyboards.
Upon exiting the demo, the player is presented with a couple pages of info about the game, and then the screen you see above: a familiar string of icons for bass, drums, guitar, and harmony vocals…followed by what is pretty undeniably a keyboard icon, and a properly Rock Band-styled number 3.
The demo is available only to Gold XBL subscribers at the moment, and I initially had some issues downloading it, so I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to grab it…and even if you can grab it now, who knows if you can grab it later?
We can talk more about the demo later on, but I wanted to drop the news about the keyboard icon as soon as possible so you folks can go and check it out for yourself. Are keyboards something you’ve been hoping for in Rock Band?
[thanks to DJ Pooka for the HOT TIP]
This raises so many questions. If keyboard has more than ten keys or so, did they change how the note highway works? Are things going to a more real music or tab style? Will the ps3 have all the instruments at once? Did they figure out some way to have more than 4 controllers?
The main question that raises for me is whether Rock Band 3 will finally allow us to play Heart’s “Magic Man” with the famous Moog synth solo.
BJ
Mike — why wouldn’t the PS3 have all the instruments at once? It supports up to 7 controllers. Drums+guitar+bass+3 vocals+keyboards=7 “instruments”; although if Beatles: RB is any indication, all of the microphones will be controlled by one wireless controller, so 5 inputs.
It’ll definitely be interesting to see how they handle a keyboard peripheral. Someone mentioned to me the other day that they thought the game should have a keyboard peripheral and I scoffed. The idea of buying yet another plastic instrument isn’t very appealing to me.
I don’t think it’s a keyboard, I think it’s a fist. RB3 is going to be a hell of a lot more violent than the previous incarnations.
I can’t wait to invite a bunch of people I don’t like over to my house for some RB3 action. Fun times!
just make a decent stock drum set. the extra controller is going to be a cigarette so you can smoke while you play!!