What is "rock band"

n. (context music English) A group of musicians who play rock music.

n. a band of musicians who play rock-'n'-roll music [syn: rock group]

Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions were released in the North America on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was released on December 18, 2007 with the Wii version being released on June 22, 2008. The Xbox 360 version was released in Europe on May 23, 2008 while the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, and Wii versions were released on September 12, 2008. All four ports of the game were released in Australia on November 7, 2008. The game was to be released in Japan and to be developed by Q Entertainment but it was canceled.

Rock Band allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can play the lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums parts to songs with "instrument controllers", as well as sing through a USB microphone. Players are scored on their ability to match scrolling musical " notes" while playing instruments, or by their ability to match the singer's pitch on vocals. Players with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions can interact with players on the same platform through both online and offline multiplayer capabilities. In addition to the 58 core songs included on the game disc, over 2,000 downloadable songs were released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.

At launch, the game software was made available in a bundle that packaged it together with the instrument peripherals, as well as for purchase separately. Individual instrument peripherals were released at a later date. The game has received widespread critical acclaim, with sales of four million units and global revenues of $600 million. Players have made over 100 million downloadable song purchases since Rock Bands release. The game's success prompted the release of six sequels: Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, Rock Band 3 and Rock Band 4.

Rock Band is a series of music video games developed by Harmonix and MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts for the Nintendo DS, iOS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox One and Xbox 360 game systems. The series, inspired by Harmonix's previous efforts on the Guitar Hero series, allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can play the lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, and drums parts to songs, as well as sing into a USB microphone. Players are scored on their ability to match scrolling musical notes while playing instruments, and by their ability to match the singer's pitch on vocals.

The concept for Rock Band was formed while Harmonix was working on the Guitar Hero series, with the idea to expand the note-matching gameplay into multiple instruments. When their Guitar Hero partner, RedOctane, was acquired by Activision, Harmonix was acquired by MTV Games, a division of Viacom, allowing them to pursue the title. The first game in the series, Rock Band, was released in 2007 and its sequel Rock Band 2 was released in 2008. As the rhythm game market began to flounder in 2009, Viacom put Harmonix up for sale, but investors were able to buy the company, making it an independent studio. Harmonix would go on to expand the series, including obtaining the lucrative licensing needed for The Beatles: Rock Band in 2009. Rock Band 3 was released in 2010 which introduced new "Pro" features and keyboard parts. Following saturation of the rhythm game market, Harmonix opted to wait on releasing another main title for several years. Upon the release of the next generation of consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Harmonix released Rock Band 4 in October 6, 2015; the company does not plan to release further versions of the game for these consoles but instead see Rock Band 4 as a platform they can continue to expand on through game patches.

Each Rock Band game comes with approximately 40 to 80 licensed songs from across all ranges of rock music and spanning from the 1960s to present day. In nearly all cases, songs released for one game could be exported to be used in future games in the series. Further, Harmonix provided 275 consecutive weeks (between 2007 and 2013) of regular downloadable content, in the form of additional downloadable songs; with the release of Rock Band 4, Harmonix has restarted these regular content releases. Harmonix has also created standalone Track Packs that contain either a selection of downloadable content, or a selection of band-specific songs. The company also designed the Rock Band Network to allow bands and labels to publish their songs as Rock Band tracks that can be purchased by players; the service was discontinued in September 2014 to allow Harmonix to focus on other projects.

To date, over 13 million copies of Rock Band titles have been sold netting more than $1 billion in total sales. Over 4,000 songs representing more than 1,200 different artists are available in the franchise library, and over 130 million downloadable song purchases have been made.