tl;dr

Harmonix in sordid top-selling-game-gets-sequel shocker (more from Eurogamer)!

The best bit is that Harmonix are not bastards. Although RB2 will ship with a complete set of new and upgraded plastic instruments (because, hey, I didn’t have enough already), the game will work perfectly well with the old ones, and indeed the new ones will work in the old game too. This also applies to DLC, tracks you buy for the game from the Xbox Marketplace. DLC bought for Rock Band will be playable in Rock Band 2, and vice versa. All good stuff. I just wish there was some way to carry the 60-odd tracks over from the disc of Rock Band into Rock Band 2 as well, so I wouldn’t have to be swapping the disc over mid-session if I want to play, say, Enter Sandman.

However, this means the European release of Rock Band on the PS3 and Wii (which was scheduled for the vague date of “summer 2008″ will come only shortly before the US release of Rock Band 2 (September 2008), and only a few months after thre European release of Rock Band on the Xbox 360. I suspect this means we’re not going to get Rock Band 2 for months and months either, unless they do something radical like skip over Rock Band on PS3/Wii entirely and just release Rock Band 2. That doesn’t seem likely. So, argh, as I’m going to have to wait months again. Stupid staggered worldwide releases, this is worse than Nintendo.

Edit for an update later: it’s seemingly been confirmed (albeit to a site I’ve never heard of) that it’ll be out in Europe in September.

Personal