MTV and Harmonix announced today that Rock Band is indeed coming to the Wii and will be hitting shelves on June 22nd.  The Special Edition package will include drums, mic, and a wireLESS guitar (nice!).    I guess the microphone that was spotted a few months back with “Wii” on the packaging did in fact predict the future.

Expected to retail for $169.99, the game will be available to US and Canadian players and is expected to be released with 5 yet-to-be announced bonus songs in addition to the 58 that came with the Playstation and Xbox versions.

Finally the poor Wii folks have something to celebrate!

I can’t wait till 4AM est to get these!!!!

Straight from the Rock Band Forums’ HMXJohnLok! Another awesome 6 pack of Master recordings from a great artist - Boston. We’ve got videos attached as usual - but as you may know - you won’t need these soon with Rock Band’s Awesome In Game Music Store!

Mega-Ultra-Super Boston SIX (6) pack!! Those who know me know that I’m especially psyched for this announcement. Enjoy!

“More Than a Feeling” (Master)
“Peace of Mind” (Master)
“Smokin’” (Master)
“Rock & Roll Band” (Master)
“Something About You” (Master)
“Hitch a Ride” (Master)

Gibson has finally gone too far.  If you are reading this article, it is very likely you are about to be sued by guitar maker Gibson.  No, seriously.  Here’s who they’re suing so far:

Activision (threatened to sue for patent infringement, still mysteriously not being sued officially)
Gamestop, Target, WalMart, Amazon and more Various Retailers (maybe this suit will have merit)
EA (huh? they don’t have anything to do with Guitar Hero??)
MTV (wait, how about we sue MTV!)
Viacom (energizer bunny stationed at the courthouse)
Harmonix (F**K it, we’re suing everyone else -let’s go for the Gold!)

What’s going on here? Well, apparently Activision/RedOctane’s longtime guitar making partner Gibson has decided that its not fair that Gibson isn’t making more money now that Guitar Hero has been such a success (Waaaah!). Gibson has been licensing its guitars for use as controllers since the original 2005 release of Guitar Hero and now claims that the GH series infringes upon one of its 1999 patents and is asking for all game sales to be halted. Why now?? Well it might have something to do with the fact that Activision has decided it was no longer interested in renewing its “marketing and support agreement with Gibson”.

Activision responded to Gibson’s January request to “relicense” in March by asking a court to invalidate Gibson’s patent (uh, hey its been like 3 years that we’ve been doing this and you’re just noticing this now??) So, preparing for battle, Gibson decides to make loud noises and sue all the major retailers selling the game. Come on, who sues Toys R Us? Evil people, I say.

Hey, and while they’re at it, Rock Band seems to be making money too.. let’s go ahead and sue Harmonix, because they used to be involved in Guitar Hero right? Wait - Rock Band is using Fender Guitar controllers… details, details - that shouldn’t matter.  Let’s get on record saying that Rock Band is infringing us too!

So, as you can see, you’re going to need to find yourself a good intellectual property attorney, because since you are talking about, holding, strumming, playing with, whammying, star powering, hammering on, pulling off, and otherwise coveting your Xplorer and Les Paul controllers, you are OBVIOUSLY VIOLATING GIBSON’S PATENTS!

Good luck and may justice be with you in court. See you there!

We hear that you folks who bought Guitar Hero for the Wii have had many a problem (mono sound, replacement disc delays, your email addresses being broadcast to the entire universe etc) so we were pleased to hear that Activision/RedOctane are at least attempting to make it up to you.  Hope this helps.

Read more here.

As MTV’s Paul DeGooyer announced in this week’s press release, Rock Band continues to post strong sales of its popular downloadable content (DLC). Since its November 20, 2007 launch, they have hit the unbelievable milestone of having sold over 6 million songs to users of the game via its weekly offerings. The last update we had was in mid-January and we were then topping 2.5million songs. With this announcement, they were also nice enough to add a patch to the game that makes buying these songs even easier - so it should be interesting to see if that number keeps rising at race car pace. And the game itself was the number one selling game in the months of January and February by revenue according to NPD.

Part of Rock Band’s DLC success may be due to its flexible pricing model which differs from Guitar Hero - you can only choose to download entire 3 song packs.  Rock Band, instead, has chosen to allow players to buy the whole pack at a slight disount or to buy the tracks individually, based on complaints they were hearing about the rival’s inflexible model.  And of course, also affecting sales is the lack of offerings from the GH franchise who have lagged behind in showcasing new tunes.

How many of these 6 million Rock Band songs were bought by you?  Hop over to the poll on the RockGamer front page and let us know how many tracks you’ve shelled out your points for.  I know I love it when I’m playing online at Xbox Live and the folks you find have lots of DLC to choose from.  (I hate having to play Run to the Hills over and over and over again - and don’t even get me started on Fallout Boy)  If you’re short on songs, hey, go out and use the new Music Store - they’re making it easy for you now!

Two good things to celebrate today: New DLC and the new Rock Band Music Store!

Rockgamer reported yesterday that Rock Band had announced a new patch that would be coming available - and its available today. So go ahead and fire up your machine so Rock Band can prompt you to download the patch that brings some baby game fixes and a whopping new In Game Music Store!

Add to that, a snappy new 6 pack of downloadable songs by supergroup Boston.

All in all a great way to start out a 3 day weekend! Happy Easter y’all!

I love Rock Band- have I mentioned that lately?  So, if you haven’t bought it yet due to the price tag, I just wanted to let ya know that its on sale right now through Amazon for $20 off - only $149.99 - plus NO SHIPPING!! Chaaaaaa-Ching! So feel free to pick one up! Here’s a link to the special - check it out.