venues where John, Paul, George, and Ringo actually played, including the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Ed Sullivan set, and the Apple Corps studio in London. For variety, there are also a few hallucinogenic “dreamscapes,” to use Rigopulos’s term.
For $250, fans can buy a “limited edition premium bundle” that includes a Beatles-branded drum set and a Höfner bass guitar controller resembling the one used by Paul McCartney. Skeptics have wondered whether the game’s 1960s-era music will appeal to the young gamers who have made Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises such huge hits, but Harmonix is betting that the game will foster a whole new generation of Beatles fans.
[Update 2:55 p.m. September 9, 2009: We’ve just learned that Governor Deval Patrick has declared today “Video Game Innovation Day” in Massachusetts. His full proclamation cites The Beatles: Rock Band as “a game that will not only bring the creativity and joy of The Beatles music to countless people, but will introduce the Fab Four to new generations of fans.”]
Apple and the Future of the iPod
There’s one place the Beatles won’t be appearing tomorrow: in the iTunes music store, at least according to Peter Kafka at the AllThingsD blog. Even though the Beatles estate and EMI Group are releasing remastered versions of every Beatles album on CD today, to coincide with the Rock Band release, you still can’t buy digital versions for direct download to your iPod. Don’t worry, the word is that digital distribution of Beatles tunes is coming soon—just not today.
But there will be plenty of other iPod-related news from an invitation-only event at Apple headquarters today. The consensus among Apple watchers seems to be that the company will announce that it’s phasing out the old Classic iPod and upgrading both the iPod Nano and the touchscreen-driven iPod Touch, perhaps adding cameras and other goodies. The company may also roll out “Cocktail,” a new format for album liner notes and other multimedia enhancements, in an attempt to boost iTunes sales of full albums rather than singles.
The Apple event starts at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time and will be live-blogged by a number of outlets, including Ars Technica and Engadget.
