Rock Band 2 has been available for ages on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the Wii version has yet seen a retail shelf. According to the Harmonix website though, that will change on December 18, 2008. So hopefully, within a few days, you can get your fantasy rock’n on the Wii, but we’ll believe it when we peep the box at Wal-Mart.

We want to apologise for the delay in getting RB2 onto the Wii and to reaffirm that we believe that Wii is an amazing and unique fit for Rock Band 2, and one that we care deeply about getting right.

Those are awful humble words, but still, where the hell is the Rock Band 2 for the Wii!

Harmonix via Kotaku

Just in time for the holiday rush, Harmonix has announced that they’re slashing prices on RB SE bundles for all major platforms. PlayStation 2 and Wii owners can pick up the bundle for $99 while the Xbox 360 and PS3 bundle will retail for $140. How much were these things before?

This is a silly, nigh inaudible video of some Harmonix developers playing Rock Band. They mostly stink, I think—I’m not a Rock Band or Guitar Hero connoisseur—but as Kotaku points out, it’s hard to fault Harmonix completely.

First of all, this video was taken at the Nottingham GameCity3 event, whatever that was—it’s fair to assume that they all had a few beers in them. Unless you’re James Hetfiled in the late 1980s, you shouldn’t be mixing alcohol and guitars.

Second, the girl isn’t even an employee of Harmonix; it’s former Edge editor Margaret Robertson. That’s no slight against Edge, mind you, but her awful playing is in no way Harmonix’s fault.

Third, why hasn’t anyone made a Hop-Hop Hero Hip-Hop Hero (I leave the typo there to encourage you kids to stay in school, forever if at all possible) game? You’d think the big game publishers would be all over that.

Harmonix just confirmed on its message board that Wii Guitar Hero III controllers will work just fine on Rock Band 2, which is due to be released on November 18.

Note that the opposite—using Rock Band 2 guitars in Guitar Hero—isn’t confirmed.

via Wii Fanboy

This is getting out of hand.

MTV is set to announce AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack today, says the NYT. The game’s launch in November will help boost awareness for the band’s new album “Black Ice.” Each Wal*Mart store will have a special section dedicated to the game, album and other memorabilia. MTV and Wal*Mart are apparently looking to set up pop-up stores in Manhattan and LA where the retail giant has not infiltrated the masses. As is the usual for anything that sells at Wal*Mart, the game will be much cheaper than most console games and will retail for $40 for all consoles.

Update: Press release filled with juicy details after the jump.
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It’s been five days since the release of RB2 and the weekend is almost here. Any plans? No? How about you, yes you, host the most kickass rock-n-roll RB2 party this weekend? We will, with the help of Wired, provide you with a handful of options to unleash the maximum potential of your newly purchased RB2 software. Read More

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Remember the unlock code from the first one? Yeah, it’s the same thing – Red, Yellow, Blue, Red, Red, Blue, Blue, Red, Yellow, Blue.

Rock ‘n’ Roll, sort of. The disc for RB2 (shipping today) will arrive on retail shelves the 14th, but the wireless drums and guitars won’t be in stores until later in the week. The software will cost $60 while the drums will set you back $90 and the guitar will be $70. And don’t forget about the Mad Catz RB bass or the RB ION drum rocker.
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This from a Harmonix PR guy:

“We’ve talked about doing a music creator. We’ve actually done them before in other games like “Amplitude” and “Frequency”…So Harmonix is going to do something great with it [music creation] down the road, we didn’t want to rush it out and do it half-assed. This is definitely a full-on project for us. You’ll hear more about it soon.”

Rock Band groupies aren’t going to like this. It seems that Harmonix has pushed the Rock Band 2 XBOX 360 Bundle Edition’s early release back to October 19. For those not keeping track, that was the date the standalone game was shipping for all platforms.  Originally, a wanna-be-rock’r could pick up the program a month early on September 14, but that person would have to spend extra coin on the bundle rather than just the game. No word for the cause of the delay, but doesn’t it seem like Harmonix is going to sell less of the higher-priced bundle? Maybe the profit margin is smaller with all the faux instruments?

Who knows, but for a recap, the release date now looks like October 19.

Hey, look at that fancy guitar there, wouldja? That’s what you’ll get if you buy Rock Band 2 when it comes out in the fall. If you already own the first Rock Band and you purchased any songs for it, they’ll all transfer over to Rock Band 2. Glory be!

Kotaku tells us that you’ll also get new drums with “a metal reinforced pedal, quieter pads, velocity sensors” and it’ll also be wireless. The guitar itself will also be wireless and feature a “sturdier strum bar” and “quieter buttons.”

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I like the look of this thing better. Looks more like my guitar, which I think is good because my guitar is good-looking, even if I can’t play it worth a damn. As you can see, it’s got a knob to serve as a whammy bar (I’m guessing), as well as a touch-sensitive bar for bending and sliding notes and even an accelerometer to activate your thrashing super powers.

Nice little racket they’ve got going on here! New game, new controllers, new accessories. I think console owners just lost the right to complain about the cost of PC upgrades.

The blokes over at Joystiq just received two potential cover art samples for Rock Band 2. A survey conducted by Listen Research appears to be the venue from which these scans were obtained. Participants in the survey were asked the following questions.

* Indicate which of the two covers below would attract you more if you were shopping for a new game in a store.
* Indicate which game box cover you believe is a better fit with the description of the game.

The description they were given was:
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Very funny, MTV News. You thought you’d wait a full 8 days after April Fools to try to pull one over on us, but I’m onto you.

According to the site, Harmonix is set to follow up the hit Rock Band with a larger-scope game called Record Label, where you use payola, pre-fab producers, and scantily clad teen pop stars to get as far ahead in the music biz as you can. The game uses creative direction from Sony’s BMG, one of the largest labels in the world to make it realistic, and not surprisingly would be a PS3 exclusive. You’d even likely be able to install rootkits on your CDs!

It sounds fun, but sadly it’s fake. You can’t spell “Harmonix” without “hoax”!

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Rock Band’s creators say Nintendo goofed by not including a hard drive in the Wii. Without the drive, Harmonix argues, there’s no way it can offer downloadable content, or DLC in the vernacular. DLC for Rock Band usually chimes in at around 30MB per song; the Wii only has 512MB of internal storage.

What hath God wrought? Not much, apparetly.

Attention Wii owners:

Rock Band is coming June 22, but you won’t have the Music Store or be able to rock online. In lieu of that you’ll get five bonus songs that are more than likely ones that are downloadable now. That’s craptastic. It will retail for $170.

Rock Band Finally Rocking Wii In June [Wired]

So I’m thinking of suing Activision. I figured that since everyone else is doing it, the company might not notice and just send me a check to avoid the hassle. I’ll just go for something small like $250 and claim that since I played air guitar to Appetite for Destruction back in ‘87 — thus simulating a rock concert — I came up with the idea for Guitar Hero.

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It’s no secret and no surprise that Rock Band is selling quite well. The game is one of the most fun multiplayers around and is on both major gaming platforms and will hit the Wii soon. The talk of the Web today, though, is the $208.7 million payout Viacom has ready for Harmonix, the Rock Band developer.

This is a performance-based earnout, as Viacom’s MTV bought Harmonix in 2006, so the money would go to Harmonix shareholders.

This is great news for Harmonix as well as Rock Band fans; this means the promised updates are sure to materialize, which is going to be the key moneymaker for this game.

Harmonix Earns Possible $208.7 Million Bonus From Viacom [Gamasutra]