Harmonix, the MTV owned developer of the Rock Band franchise will face some layoffs in the upcoming months, due to, as the developer puts it, “restructuring our organization to bring it into alignment with our current product development plans”, which is bullshit marketing speak for “we can’t afford to have these people”. Anyways, some 15 percent of Harmoix 240 man staff is expected to be let go.

The founders of Harmonix, developers of Rock Band, have sued their parent company Viacom over unpaid bonuses with recent Rock Band games. Harmonix was acquired by MTV and Viacom just before the first Rock Band game became a huge success.

Harmonix founders claim their deal had them awarded a share of the profit of the Rock Band franchise over $32 million, but Viacom did what’s known as “Hollywood accounting”, meaning they shuffled money around and made deals so that Rock Band technically never made a profit. Even though it grossed hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pepsi has started a new promotion which gives consumers a chance to win prizes associated with Rock Band. The “Drink Up, Rock Out” promotion gives you the chance to win Rock Band 2 Special Edition bundles, tracks, Xbox 360 consoles, and more. If you so happen to drink a Pepsi, look under the cap for a code and enter it on the official website.

If soda drinking isn’t your cup of tea, you can always enter the video contest and make your own Rock Band music video for a chance at an MTV Video Music Award Moonman. More details about the sweepstakes can be found on the official website.

via GameSpot

Contrary to speculations that Grant Theft Auto may be jumping to the Nintendo DS side, Sony has made it clear that is has no plans to remove the popular franchise from their sleek portable unit.

According to what SCEA head of PSP marketing John Koller told MTV Multiplayer, GTA is “a tremendous franchise for PlayStation in general,” which means PSP owners will once again see a handheld installment on the PSP in the near future.

“No one should sleep on that franchise. That’s a tremendous franchise for PlayStation in general. We’ve had two that are the top two sellers on PSP right now. So, there’s definitely continued conversations with ['GTA' development studio] Rockstar on all their brands. That’s nothing that’s left the PlayStation family.”

All of these rumors started to come about when Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was ready to go for the Nintendo DS. But then again, it only makes sense to bring one of the most popular video game franchises in history to as many different platforms as humanly possible, and of course, that does include the PlayStation brand.

(Source) PSXtreme

It seems Harmonix is getting ready to kick production into overdrive as it was recently reported that by years end they are expecting to have a library of up to and over 5,000 songs.

Seems a bit high, considering the game has been out for over a year and has just recently passed the milestone of 500 songs, doesn’t it? 

To fulfill MTV’s prediction 4,500 songs would have to be released in 2009 alone, you do the math.

Read (Yahoo!)

Hang on to your PlayStations as we have some good news for you all. Sony Computer Entertainment America and MTV Networks have decided that it’s the right time to sign an agreement in order to bring us some MTV content to the PlayStation Network.

Starting this February you can start downloading shows like The City, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels. Later on other titles will probably arrive. These shows are a cool addition to the PlayStation Network which already shows about 1200 movies and over 3000 TV shows episodes. As with the rest of the available shows, you will have to purchase the MTV content you want to download but you will also get to transfer it between any PS3 and PSP systems you own.

via gamesindustry

In even more Rock Band news, the latest issue of Harmonix’s Rock Band Community Zine included some statistics detailing the sales performance of the game’s downloadable content.

The statistics reveal that over 28 million track downloads have been made to date. There are 345 tracks by 239 artists on the Rock Band store right now. Harmonix added that it has hit the 500 total song mark for the Rock Band games.

Wow, just wow! That’s a lot of money for Harmonix and MTV Games.

In even more Rock Band news, Harmonix today announced that Rock Band Track Pack Volume 2 will be available for PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii on November 17. This marks the second such release in the studio’s ongoing efforts to bring online content to people who don’t subscribe to PSN or Xbox Live.

The $30 release will be a full standalone product, though those who buy the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will be able to download its songs for use in Rock Band and its sequel. The tracks:

• Avenged Sevenfold – Afterlife
• Blondie – Call Me
• Weezer – El Scorcho
• Devo – Girl U Want
• Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
• Disturbed – Indestructible
• Angels & Airwaves – It Hurts
• The Cars – Just What I Needed
• The Police – Message in a Bottle
• Pixies – Monkey Gone to Heaven
• Duran Duran – Rio
• Motley Crue – Saints of Los Angeles
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Simple Man
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Snow ((Hey Oh))
• Nine Inch Nails – The Perfect Drug
• Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race
• Papa Roach – Time Is Running Out
• Garbage – Why Do You Love Me
• Judas Priest – You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
• Smashing Pumpkins – Zero

Those of you who waited all day yesterday for the promised free songs for Rock Band 2 – worry not, cause Harmonix hasn’t forgotten you.

The company has apparently hit an “unexpected delay with getting the content online from Microsoft” and “have suspended sending out the token codes until the content becomes available,” according to a forum post.

"We hope to have this resolved in the next 24 hours and apologize profusely for the delay," wrote community manager Sean Baptiste. "Again, we apologize for the delay and are working our butts off to get the content out to you."

PS3 owners will start to receive their codes later this week.

It appears that retailers have grown tired of large plastic instrument controllers taking up their valuable shelf space. In fact, the PopStar Guitar controller by XS Games almost didn’t make it to stores because retailers weren’t willing to stock it. Additionally, one Wal-Mart executive even “spent ten minutes explaining the problem of every single publisher coming out with a new, big controller” during a demo for a music-rhythm game.

This MTV Multiplayer report takes a look at the issue. It notes that XS Games was forced to come up with a Wii Remote wrap-around controller instead of a full-blown plastic guitar just to get retail space for its game.

Music games aren’t the only culprit either, with Wii Fit packing the huge balance board peripheral. Heck, the next Tony Hawk game is expected to pack a skateboard of its own.