Last week, I complained about the lack of holiday-themed DLC for band games.

So I followed up with the makers of “Guitar Hero: World Tour,” “Rock Band” and “Rock Revolution” to see if they had any last-minute holiday songs up their sleeves.

Today, MTV Games and Harmonix are announcing through Multiplayer the December 23 release of the “Rock Band” “Rockin’ the Holidays 2008″ downloadable track pack, which includes three songs: “Hanukkah Blessings” by Barenaked Ladies, “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You” by Billy Squier and The Pretenders’ version of “Blue Christmas.” Each track will be $.99 (80 Microsoft Points) each or for $2.99 (240 Microsoft Points) for the pack.

Meanwhile, a Konami rep confirmed that “Rock Revolution” will not get any holiday songs. Activision also told me that there won’t be any holiday music available for download for “Guitar Hero: World Tour,” but wanted to remind me that new, exclusive songs for Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and The Eagles are available this month. And on December 23, players will get three free Reggae tracks from Pepper, Slightly Stoopid and Expendables. (And Patrick did find some homebrew holiday songs on GHTunes created by its players.)

Also, a reader correctly pointed out that “Wii Music” has two Christmas songs: “Jingle Bell Rock” and “O Christmas Tree.”

So will this satisfy your holiday band game needs, or is this too little too late?

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The NPD group, which gamers typically hear from when monthly gaming sales figures are reported, is claiming that our favorite entertainment industry is helping the music business.

They did this in a press release today that is headlined with news that CD sales are dropping. But, hey, we gamers are helping the music industry out.

Hey record companies and musicians, you’re welcome!

From NPD:

Video gaming also appears to have positive effects for the music industry. Twenty-two percent of music buyers (CDs, digital or mobile) overall – and 35 percent of consumers under the age of 35 — reported playing a music-based video game, such as “Rock Band” or “Guitar Hero,” in the prior three months. Many of these music gamers reported that the gaming experience had a positive outcome, such as creating music discovery or triggering a digital-music or CD purchase.

“Year-to-date through November, the music and dance genre was the best-selling genre in video games, representing 16 percent of total software sales for the year,” according to Anita Frazier, NPD’s video games analyst.

“Even though gaming competes with music for the consumer’s entertainment wallet share, music-related games are evolving into an important source for music discovery that can have positive revenue implications for the recording industry,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD.

Activision said there’s no holiday music coming to “Guitar Hero: World Tour” but maybe there’s a reason for that.

It’s already there!

Official content may not be in the cards, but gamers have taken it upon themselves to produce holiday rock with “Guitar Hero”’s music creator.

Here’s what “Guitar Hero” players have to offer you:

Read more…

Wii has become to be the most popular vehicle for music games, but two years in a row, MTV Games and Harmonix have delivered “Rock Band” on Wii months later than its counterparts.

This year, “Rock Band 2″ will not ship for Wii until December 18. It might not make Christmas. That depends on when your retailer receives it.

Following an avalanche of complaints from fans, Harmonix took to their official “Rock Band” message board. Harmonix assured fans the studio is hoping to release future versions of “Rock Band” for Wii at the same time as everyone else.

“We’ve seen that many users in the Wii community have been unhappy with the period of time between Rock Band’s release on other platforms and on Wii,” said the company in a statement. “We want to apologize 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. Going forward, it is our ambition to release future games on Wii simultaneously with releases on the other platforms.”

The first test case should be the upcoming Beatles-related “Rock Band” title next year. If you can, will you be picking up “Rock Band 2″ for Wii this holiday?

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“Guitar Hero Arcade” is not the first time arcade developer Raw Thrills had been asked to work on a Harmonix property.

When Harmonix was showing the first demos of “Guitar Hero,” Raw Thrills VP Andrew Eloff was approached by Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos.

Rigopulos wanted Eloff to look at the studio’s earlier music games for arcade consideration.

“Alex took me over to his suite and he showed me the ‘Guitar Hero’ game,” recalled Eloff during a phone interview last Friday about “Guitar Hero Arcade.” “Because they wanted to pitch us on [their PS2 music games] ‘FreQuency‘ and ‘Amplitude.’ They kept saying ‘You’ve gotta make ‘Frequency’ for the arcade!’ It’s like, yeaaah, you know, I don’t know. We like ‘Frequency’ a lot. It’s a neat game and stuff and everybody over here loves it and we love to play it, but we were just like ehhh.”

Little did Eloff know that a few years later, he would be transforming a sequel to a Harmonix game into an arcade — except this time, Harmonix wouldn’t be involved.

An MTV spokesperson declined to comment on Harmonix’s past arcade plans.

Would you have played a “Frequency” arcade game?

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“Guitar Hero Arcade” seems poised for success before it’s even out the door, which already has the game’s developers thinking about the future.

When development started at Raw Thrills, Activision and Neversoft were building “Guitar Hero World Tour.” “Guitar Hero Arcade” is based on “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.”

With “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero World Tour” taking band-style music games to the mainstream, Raw Thrills VP Andrew Eloff is intrigued at the idea of expanding that to the arcade game.

“It’s exciting to think about, isn’t it?,” said Eloff to MTV Multiplayer during a “Guitar Hero Arcade” interview last week. “I personally really like playing the drums now because that’s like a whole different level of play [The decision] really is up to Activision and Konami. At the end of the day, it’s Activision’s baby and Konami is the partner on it and we’re developing it and manufacturing it for them. It’s really up to them, but I think it would be super cool to add more instruments and stuff like that.”

What do you think about “Guitar Hero World Tour” in the arcades? If this game had been available during my college years, it would have eaten my wallet.

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It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of the band Weezer.

I once played an hour of “Gran Turismo 5: Prologue” — I’m not into realistic racing games at all — just to hear an unreleased track from their last album.

So when Tapulous announced a Weezer-themed version of the most popular iPhone game of 2008, “Tap Tap Revenge,” with Weezer covering a series of Christmas classics, I was sold.

Unfortunately, the covers aren’t very good.

Weezer snoozes through six Christmas tracks — O Come All Ye Faithful, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, Silent Night, Hark The Herald Angel Sings, O Only Night, The First Noel — and it ultimately breaks the game.

None of the tracks stood out to me, and in a game where music is the driving reason you’re playing along, my $4.99 was not particularly well spent. The idea of band-themed versions of “Tap Tap Revenge,” however, works well. One problem here is primarily the music. The other is that, after hours and hours of “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero,” not having any tactile feedback with a music game — the iPhone touch screen is flat, after all — seems odd.

If you’re still interested, you can purchase the game here. Now, if they made another one with songs from their “Pinkerton” album…

‘Tis the season, so you might be planning or attending a holiday party sometime soon.

In fact, I’m trying to plan my own holiday party right now. And with several drum kits and guitars in my living room, there’s no doubt my friends will want to bust them out.

But I wanted the party to fit the theme of the season. And while “Rock Band” now boasts over 500 tunes in its library, I didn’t find any that are holiday-related. “Guitar Hero: World Tour” doesn’t seem to have any either. There was a rock version of “We Three Kings” by Steve Ouimette that was released for free last December for “Guitar Hero III” but I don’t have that, nor do I want it for just one instrument.

While the band games currently offer nothing, the karaoke ones do. Sony announced last week that “SingStar” would get a holiday DLC pack. For $6.99, you can get classic Christmas tunes sung by contemporary artists such as Toni Braxton, Babyface, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion and Shakin’ Stevens.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft’s new “Lips” singing game gave us holiday DLC in the form of “Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams and “The Dreidel Song” by Sister Hazel.

So karaoke-wise, there are a few offerings but I have a feeling party-goers will gravitate towards the band games. As Patrick mentioned recently, why would you just sing and not involve other people in the room?

Does not releasing rockin’, band-friendly renditions of holiday tunes seem like a missed opportunity for these titles?

[Photo Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images]

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“Guitar Hero Arcade” is coming early next year, courtesy of Activision, arcade developer Raw Thrills (see: “Big Buck Hunter”) and…Konami?!

That’s right. Former music game heavyweight and genre pioneer Konami is working with its former rivals to bring “Guitar Hero” to a brand-new scene.

Soon, you won’t even have to leave the bar to play a few chords from your favorite Nirvana song.

To learn more about what to expect from “Guitar Hero Arcade,” we hopped on the phone with Raw Thrills VP Andrew Eloff, who explained the project’s history, what Konami’s involvement is and what “Guitar Hero” fans will find when they pop in a quarter.

[Photo Credit: bemanistyle]

Read more…

We broke the news that the highly regarded microphone bundled with Microsoft’s “Lips” karaoke game would not work with “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” at launch.

Harmonix and MTV Games have now addressed gamers’ concern over the lack of compatibility, and there’s good news to be shared.

“Microsoft and MTV Games are working together to ensure that consumers will be able to use the wireless mics from ‘Lips’ with ‘Rock Band 2’ after launch,” said the companies in an e-mailed statement. “More details on timing to come. Harmonix and MTV Games strive for all third-party controllers to work with the ‘Rock Band’ games, fitting with Harmonix’ open-platform philosophy for controllers.”

Sounds like we’ll have a patch in the coming weeks! Will you use the “Lips” mic?

Earlier this month, I got a copy of the “KORG DS-10 Synthesizer” from XSeed Games. The DS game is basically a simulated KORG MS-10 keyboard in portable form. And it’s not dumb-downed for would-be musicians; in fact, it would help a lot if you’re already musically inclined and familiar with using the real KORG. Though I have a decade of trumpet-playing under my belt, I’d consider myself a non-musician since I looked at the “game” and was completely daunted by the numerous options. But sometimes the best thing to do is to just jump right in.

Using the knobs and sliders on the touch screen, it was surprisingly easy to manipulate the two analog synthesizers, the drum machine as well as a slew of sounds and effects. After tinkering with the device on-and-off for the last few weeks, I came up with a song that I’m ready to share with the world. Admittedly, my tune is inspired by the music of horror movie legend John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi’s score from Italian zombie film “Zombi 2.” It’s called “Braaaains.” Have a listen.

The “KORG DS-10 Synthesizer” is in stores now so you can have a go at creating music in the palm of your hand — novice or not.

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As of this typing, more than 750,000 people have watched the above clip on YouTube, an apparent work of amateur genius — “Guitar Hero” played with bicycle and pavement.

Think that clip is too unreal to be real?

I got on the phone today with an executive from Activision to find out the real history behind that clip. First of all, the company expected some of you to cry foul. Read more…