Rock Band gets a little bit country

A news clip airing on cable network Country Music Television claims that "the Xbox version of Rock Band 2 is in stores this weekend," which is sort of true. The Xbox 360 full-band bundle shipped to stores last weekend (the stand-alone edition was released last month), along with both versions of the game for PlayStation 3.

However, the blink-and-you-miss-it news bite ends with the narrator telling country music fans, "Don't feel left out. In December, Rock Band 2 will have select country tracks available to download." Assuming CMT's attention to detail was greater when it came to country music than which systems the game was on or when it came out, that suggests at least a handful of downloadable tracks pulled from the network's favored genre are headed to the game.

Reaction to the news was mixed but plentiful in the official Rock Band forums. A thread about the CMT bit reached 31 pages before a Harmonix representative shut it down.

"As with any announcement/advertisement/rumor/'leak' that comes from anywhere other than these forums, please don't get all worked up about something unless it's officially been announced by HMX," the representative said. "Until then it's safe to say that anything else you hear should be taken with a grain of salt... We'll have country in Rock Band sooner or later. Ideally we'll have all the various sub genres that people are clamoring for (hardcore punk, goth, ska, etc) eventually. We haven't shut the door on anything."