LEGO Rock Band Updates

Backbone Entertainment suffers round of layoffs due to "lower demand for conventional console development"; studio will continue to operate at reduced size.

Developer calls Guitar Hero discontinuation "discouraging," touts continuing investment in its own rhythm franchise.

Label behind Rock Band officially out of the publishing game, but "has not been completely dissolved," according to reps.

Rock Band publisher apparently closed down following sale of Harmonix to private equity group.

Harmonix bought up by private holding company; says "unannounced projects" are on the way.

Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy among Harmonix ex-shareholders who claim multimedia giant manipulated costs to prevent bonus payouts.

Harmonix's rhythm game platform hits millennial milestone on October 12 with new tracks from Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album Are You Experienced?

Media multinational reports worldwide ancillary revenues declined 7 percent due to slowing sales of rhythm game series; Tragic Kingdom to be available next week as DLC.

GDC 2010: Developers deliver a postmortem on their indie-friendly user-created song service, just weeks after taking the long-awaited project live in North America.

Media conglomerate wants back a "substantial portion" of $150 million in performance-related payouts to former Rock Band developer shareholders.

Conglomerate calls out MTV Games' rhythm game for Media Networks segment's 6% slide in Q4 to $2.33 billion; overall quarterly revenues reach $4.1 billion.

Industry watchers pull varying lessons from the year's retail wreckage, predict return to growth in 2010.

NPD analyst pegs total store-bought software figure at $1.46 million last month; Activision's shooter franchise most lucrative so far in 2009.

Harmonix and MTV Games reach milestone between on-disc, downloadable tracks for rhythm franchise.

Draft of Digital Economy measure proposes exceptions for games situated in athletics, rhythm, religion genres.

Movie tie-in games dominate Aussie releases, while Activision and Warner Bros. face off in the music genre arena.