Today at the E3 video game trade show, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, helped kick off the show with more details on The Beatles Rock Band video game, set to be released on Sept. 9, 2009 (9/9/09), along with the release of the entire, original, digitally re-mastered Beatles CD catalog.
The game explores the career of The Beatles, from the early days in 1963 Liverpool, to the final performance on top of the Apple Corps (not Apple Inc.) rooftop. The game will include three-part vocal harmonies to game play, and you’ll also be able to hear “previously unreleased authentic voice recordings from John, Paul, George and Ringo chatting between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road” more than 40 years ago.
The game will include 45 songs, with additional songs being announced at a later date. In addition, the entire Abbey Road album will be available for future download purchase. For Xbox 360 owners, the song “All You Need Is Love” will be released as an Xbox Live download, with proceeds from the download sale benefitting Doctors Without Borders.
The game also includes new hardware replicas representing instruments played by The Beatles, including the Rickenbacker 325 and Gretsch Duo Jet guitars used by Lennon and Harrison, and the Hofner bass used by McCarney. A Ringo Starr-inspired, Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drum set will also be available. The game is set to ship for the Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii systems.
While I’m mainly a ‘70s and ‘80s music “rocker”, the party game nature about getting your friends together to sing the songs of The Beatles make this one of the most-anticipated games of the year. It’s definitely going on my “must examine” list.
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