Also from GDC comes a neat little behind-the-scenes look at some of the earlier development of The Beatles: Rock Band. Joystiq has posted a series of snaps of a Harmonix panel talking about the user interface for Beatles Rock Band, which includes some interesting glimpses of early iterations of the interface.

I’m sure not everyone here will find this as interesting as I did, but then, 10 years at a magazine (a magazine that went through more redesigns than I can remember) caused me to develop a bit of an insider’s interest in graphic design. If you’re like me — or you just really dig The Beatles: Rock Band — click through to see what the game might have looked like in an alternate dimension.

[Read | image: Joystiq]

Oh goody. Harmonix has finally set a date for the formely 360-exclusive “All You Need is Love” to appear in the music store of PS3 and Wii versions of The Beatles: Rock Band.

It’ll hit Wii next Tuesday, February 16, and PS3 a couple weeks after that, on Thursday, March 4. The price will be the usual for a single: $1.99 on PS3, 200 Wii Points on Wii.

So there you have it, Beatles completists. Now you can have it all.

Microsoft has announced that the Beatles Rock Band download “All You Need is Love” has raised $217,780 for Doctors Without Borders (aka Médecins Sans Frontières). As you probably remember, Microsoft, Harmonix, MTV, and Apple Corps pledged to deliver all the proceeds from the download to the organization, which turns out to have been at the rate of 112 Microsoft Points per download, or $1.40. Do the math and that comes out to over 155,000 downloads, which is an entirely respectable number.

From the press release:

“We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of people around the world who have contributed to us through the download of “All You Need Is Love” and the sales of the one-of-a-kind Xbox console,” said Dr. Matthew Spitzer, president of the Board of Directors for MSF-USA. “It is because of funds generated from initiatives such as this that MSF was able to respond to the Haiti earthquake so quickly, providing urgent lifesaving medical care immediately in the aftermath.”

The promotion ended yesterday, but the press release went out on Friday — so I’ll be curious to see if the push of the final weekend bumps that total much.

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Time Warner Cable is hosting a pretty simple and sweet sweepstakes at the moment. Through January 10, if you visit Time Warner’s contest site and enter your personal information, you’ll be entered for a chance to win some pretty nifty Beatles Rock Band-themed prizes.

The contest is giving away 10 Beatles Rock Band Premium Bundles for the 360 — that’s the one with the Höfner bass controller and shiny Ringo-approved drum kit.

Oh, and there’s also a trip for two to London:

Roundtrip coach class air transportation to London, England.

Ground transportation from London Heathrow Airport to hotel.

3 night hotel stay.

Beatles fan experience: may include touring the Apple Offices, the London Theater, Abbey Road Studios/Abbey Road crossing, and more!

So: solid prizes, easy entry, no obligation. Why are you still reading this? Go!

[Read]

According to review-aggregating site Metacritic, the music game the critics loved most this year is The Beatles: Rock Band. Its 88-89% rating (depending on platform) kept it out of the overall, cross-platform top 10 for the year, but it ranked fairly highly on individual platform charts. Interestingly, Guitar Hero 5′s results proved a lot more variable;Guitar Hero: Metallica actually beat it out on PS3.

Here’s the breakdown:

PS3
The Beatles: Rock Band — #14 (88% review average)
Guitar Hero: Metallica — #23 (86%)
Guitar Hero 5 — #26 (86%)

360
The Beatles: Rock Band — #11 (89%)
Guitar Hero 5 — #22 (85%)
Guitar Hero: Metallica — #26 (84%)

Wii
The Beatles: Rock Band — #2 (89%)
Guitar Hero 5 — #3 (89%)
Guitar Hero: Metallica — #11 (85%)

And the consumers seem to have agreed with the critics: the NPD Group’s Anita Frazier recently reported on her Twitter feed that Guitar Hero and Rock Band were two of the top five highest-grossing properties in gaming for the year. (The other three: Call of Duty, Wii Fit, and Mario Bros.)

Hit the Read link for the exhaustive rundown of the top 40 games on each platform.

[Read]

Oh, and let’s not forget that you Beatles Rock Band owners also get new DLC today: The remainder of Rubber Soul. See the original post for all the details, but here’s the short version: All the songs are downloadable as singles for the usual price. Or you can get all 11 tracks for 18 bucks.

And to give you a glimpse of what’s being offered in the pack, I’ve embedded the Rubber Soul trailer after the break. What can I say, I am that giving. Continue reading →

Well, folks, this is it: The last of the promised album downloads for The Beatles: Rock Band hits on Tuesday (Thursday on PS3, natch). This time it’s the iconic Rubber Soul, an album in which, I’m told, the band began experimenting with the novel orchestration and instrumentation that would make their later albums so unusual.

There’s none of the Abbey Road-style shenanigans with regard to which songs are available as singles here; they can all be downloaded individually for the usual two bucks or equivalent, or downloaded as a pack for $17.99 or 1440 Microsoft Points.

The full track listing is after the break, but as usual, links go only to the physical album since Beatles MP3s are only available via unusual means. As a consolation prize, though, here’s a link to the new trailer for the Rubber Soul DLC. You’re welcome. Continue reading →