Guitar Hero: The Beatles?

Mr. Kennedy

From GameSpot News: The definitive source for video game news, announcements, ship dates, rankings, sales figures, and more.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that the Beatles catalog may soon show up in a future installment of Activision's Guitar Hero in a similar fashion to the recently announced Guitar Hero Aerosmith. Speaking to the newspaper, Sony/ATV Music CEO Martin Bandier said, "It's something we have talked about and something I'd like to pursue." The Times story wasn't clear on whether Bandier was referencing discussions taking place internally at Sony/ATV or with Activision as well.

Sony/ATV--which is jointly owned by Sony Corp. and controversial musician Michael Jackson--has historically been a strict guardian of The Beatles' highly prized catalog, as evidenced by its refusal to release the Liverpool quartet's landmark library on iTunes. Given that precedent, it seems more than a bit implausible that the Beatles would turn up in a game before seeing dissemination through more widely accepted distribution outlets.

However, as the LA Times notes, Sony/ATV also seems to have begun to relax their hold on the Beatles' recordings, with Fox's American Idol recently given permission to conduct Beatles-themed shows. And, of course, precedence falls by the wayside when Sony/ATV's CEO definitively expresses interest in having the group headline a future Guitar Hero game.

Visit and shop for video games at my Amazon-based store, also get discounted HD DVDs while they last.

Bob Van Dam

I've only played Guitar Hero once, and I sucked ass, but man is this a good idea. The game franchise itself is quite revolutionary, IMO.

Like them or not, the Beatles are the greatest band of all time, and this, by all rights, should be a monster hit, especially with older gamers. Lord knows Jacko needs the money anyway, so screwing fans over in his financial state by red-lighting the project is something I don't see happening.

At last the current generation will have some exposure to the Fab Four. Maybe they'll realise what good music actually sounds like... /rant