Rock Band Gets New Tracks for the Wii and PS2

Rock Band and Guitar Hero, the two main competitors in the world of music simulation, have created a new market in the form of downloadable songs, which you can get online and then use in the game.

It is estimated that the Rock Band DLC content has generated over 10 million song sales since the game was released in November last year, which is a pretty big number.

The issue with this approach of downloadable content in the form of songs is that there are at least two platforms on which MTV and Harmonix want to market the game that do not allow support for the kind of DLC that the game offers. The PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo Wii versions of Rock Band are in danger of being seen as poorer cousins of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

But Harmonix and MTV have come up with a solution in the creation of the Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1, a retail disk that will include 20 songs that up until now were only available in the form of DLC.

The pack is going to be released on July 15 with a retail price of 29.99 dollars. The offer is pretty attractive as the individual songs which feature the 20 song retail package have a price of around 1.99 dollars when they are downloaded on the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3 versions. So there's a clear monetary incentive for gamers to go out and get the Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1.

The list of songs featured includes Blink 182 with All the Small Things, Boston playing More Than a Feeling or Queens of the Stone Age with their song Little Sister. All in all, the players get 20 new tracks on which to test their skills that they can get no other way.

Prior to the release of the Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1, June 22 will see the launch of the Wii version of Rock Band, which will include bonus tracks like Oasis' Don't Look Back in Anger, Police's Roxanne and Rockaway Beach from The Ramones.