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Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA)'s MTV Games and The Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd. announced during a conference call this morning that a new interactive music game based on The Beatles catalog is in development for a late 2009 release. The untitled game will be based on the career of The Beatles and the platform for MTV's Rock Band, but will not be a spin-off of the popular series as rumored previously. According to Billboard, "the game is designed to take users on an 'experiential journey' through the Beatles' career, music and vision. It will also include new types of interactive gameplay associated with the Beatles' imagery in addition to its music."Giles Martin, the son of Beatles' producer George Martin, will serve as the game's music producer and the music featured will come from the band's British releases' master recordings, but not remixed or remastered. Unfortunately, Apple Corps. CEO Jeff Jones also commented that the announcement of the game "was in no way meant as a precursor to the Beatles' catalog arriving at digital music services." Fortunately, Jones' comment leaves the question of remastered or remixed physical albums open.
Investors should be interested in Viacom and MTV Games (sorry, Apple Corps Ltd. is a private company) based on the company's success in the interactive music video game market already, and even though The Beatles game will not carry the Rock Band franchise brand, fans will no doubt make the unbranded connection. Keep in mind as well that this announcement comes a mere four days after Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) released a new game in rival franchise Guitar Hero. The new Guitar Hero World Tour incorporates game play like Rock Band with a "band" based interactive game that includes vocal and drum kit input controllers.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2008 @ 7:46PM
Richard Driver said...
Creating a Rock Band-based game but not keeping it as part of that franchise means that the new game will be branded a "Beatles" product first and video game second.