Rock Band DLC tops 6M, in-game music store opens

When MTV Games and Harmonix turned the lights up on Rock Band in November, the game came packed in with 58 songs, the vast majority of which were master tracks from original artists. However, thanks to weekly additions of new tunes and track packs, Harmonix has more than doubled that initial offering, boasting a sizable repertoire of more than 125 tracks from acts from the early '60s all the way up to the modern day.

Fans of Harmonix's rhythm rocker have responded in kind; the game's publisher announced today that Rock Band's downloadable content has gone six times platinum, with more than 6 million songs having been purchased over Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Although not altogether surprising, the feat is impressive, considering the cumbersome out-of-game interface that players must grapple with to access the optional content.

Luckily, years of rock overload haven't left Harmonix with deaf ears, and MTV Games revealed today that the long-clamored-for in-game music store would finally open for business for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game later this week. The Rock Band Music Store will be added to the game via a free downloadable update, and promises a more streamlined venue for previewing and purchasing individual songs and full track packs.

Once downloaded, the Music Store will be accessible through the game's main menu, and virtual rockers will be able to sort downloadable tracks by artist, title, genre, album, or pack. The store also features album art, as well as a brief audio preview of the song and a detailed breakdown of the difficulty of each tune by instrument. A complete list of all downloadable songs to date is available on Rock Band's official Web site.

[UPDATE] In a post to Harmonix's Web site for Rock Band, senior designer Dan Teasdale laid out a variety of other game tweaks and updates that will be included in the free update later this week. Rockers who take their toy guitars on the road in Band World Tour mode will now have access to more fans and transatlantic venues at easier difficulties. Harmonix has also ironed out a bug in this mode that was limiting song selection, as well as improved phoneme hit detection in certain tracks. The update also includes console specific tweaks, with the PS3 edition's microphone latency being improved and band logos now being visible through Xbox Live. Harmonix also promises that both editions will benefit from improved loading times of downloaded tracks.