Yesterday Harmonix sent out a newsletter to Rock Band community members giving credence to the growing rumors that Harmonix may be bringing Rock Band back together. The email sent to Rock Band account holders lets gamers know that Harmonix has not forgotten about their plastic instruments and may be eying a return with the next-gen consoles.
The email from The Rock Band developer stated:
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a ‘Rock Band’ specific newsletter, mainly because we’ve had all these other awesome new games to talk about. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten about ‘Rock Band,’ or about those of you in the community that are still rocking out on the regular.”
While this is far from a confirmation that Harmonix may be bringing Rock Band back together, it is something that they are obviously considering. The questions in the Survey Monkey questionnaire ask gamers how often do they currently play Rock Band , how often do they currently purchase DLC for Rock Band , which functional Rock Band instruments do they currently own, and which platform do they play Rock Band on the most.
After these brief questions, a most and least excited ranking is given for the topics of new DLC, a new Rock Band on the current gen systems (PS4, Xbox One, Wii U), a new Rock Band on the previous generation of consoles (PS3, XBOX 360, Wii), a sale on existing DLC, and new versions of existing instruments for the previous generation of consoles.
The survey is very general and does not offer gamers any real clues as to what Harmonix may be tossing around in their daily meetings about the future of the franchise. However, if Alex Rigopulos’ comments to GamesBeat are to be taken into consideration, Rock Band isn’t “something that’s being left behind. It’s something we’ll return to at the right point in time and reimagine it as appropriate for its time.”
Harmonix has a lot on their plate that will have to be cleared before we can hope to hear an official word on Rock Band coming back. Dance Central: Spotlight will be arriving this September for the Xbox One, as well as Fantasia being co-developed with Disney. There is also the music combat game Chroma that we reported on previously , which finished a closed alpha and is currently being reworked based off the feedback it received. The last Rock Band game to use the instruments was 2010’s Rock Band 3 . Rock Band Blitz was the last game published on the PS3 and Xbox 360 for the Rock Band franchise.
[Image Source | Harmonix]
