The latest incarnation of Rock Band features musical legends the Beatles. The wife and I rented and played through The Beatles: Rock Band last weekend. We had fun with the familiar tunes (and learned a few less well-known tracks too), but there is no way I’d pay $60 to buy this game.
Since we already owned the instruments from the first Rock Band, renting was an easy choice over purchasing the full game. And I know there are a few folks out there who will go ahead and purchase the full game (plus instruments, for around $200.00). But from a money-making perspective, I think the smarter way to get the Beatles out to music game fans would have been digital distribution. There are plenty of songs available for download within Rock Band–ranging from Iggy Pop to the Jackson Five. It seems like more folks would purchase individual Beatles tracks than would go out and buy the game. At roughly $2.00 per song (or 160 Microsoft points, if you don’t pay attention to conversions), I would have easily spent more money to buy 15 to 20 Beatles songs; which is a lot more than the $8.00 I spent to rent the game.
Like I said, I’m sure some folks will buy this game and love it. But the game is far too short to justify the cost (Cori and I played through every single song in the game’s tour mode in just under four hours), and there honestly aren’t that many of the Beatles’ hits. Maybe it’s because I’m too young, but I was really unimpressed by the number of B-sides and psychedelic oddities included in the game.
Still, it was a fun game for a rental, so even if I don’t recommend buying The Beatles: Rock Band, I do recommend you take advantage of someone else’s copy if you get the chance–if for nothing else, then at least to see the trippy videos like this one:
