Harmonix: Rock Band will return

Rock Band fans may have been disheartened to learn today that Harmonix's next game is not a new entry in the series, but rather Fantasia: Music Evolved, a new Kinect game with Disney.

However, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos told VentureBeat that the Rock Band franchise is not gone forever, but will return in a reimagined form someday.

"'I'll also say that we don't view Rock Band as something that's being left behind," Rigopulos said. "It's something we'll return to at the right point in time and reimagine it as appropriate for its time."

The most recent entry in the Rock Band series was last summer's downloadable game Rock Band Blitz. In all, more than 130 million Rock Band songs have been downloaded to date.

Rigopulos said in October 2011, a year after Rock Band 3 hit store shelves, that the series may undergo a "creative reinterpretation," though it is unclear what this means.