Retailers like GameStop have been listing it for awhile now, but Harmonix and MTV Games have just revealed the retail-based Rock Band Country Track Pack for a July 21 release for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 2. The Rock Band Country Track Pack will retail for $29.99.
The pack will contain, as you would suspect, country songs. Twenty-one of them to be exact, featuring all sorts of country superstar Kennys like Kenny Chesney and Kenny Rogers. While some of the tracks on the pack are already available on the Rock Band music store, many of them will be exclusive to the retail offering for a limited time (Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” for example), before being made available for download.
Like with the previous retail track packs, the title will be a standalone game, but Xbox 360 and PS3 who purchase the game can download the tracks to their hard drives (free of charge) for play in Rock Band 1 or Rock Band 2.
A handful of the announced tracks, along with my question to you, can be found after the jump.
I have a feeling I know what your answers will be, but I have to ask — do you like Harmonix and MTV Games’ dual approach of releasing downloadable content for existing games alongside retail track packs like these? Downloadable tracks generally go for about $2 a song; this 21 song pack has you pay a little less than $1.50 per song. While $30 for only 21 songs might seem a bit steep compared to 80 some-odd tracks for $59.99, the other option would be Activision’s approach — releasing an entirely “new game” very few months at full price.
Personally, I prefer this Rock Band approach; I appreciate being able to pop in one disc and having over 600 songs to choose from. But someone has to be disagreeing with me — Activision has been extremely successful with its model so far, relying heavily on the Guitar Hero brand name. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working, as the publisher is making money hand-over-fist. Electronic Arts on the other hand has reported losses in the music-rhythm game category.
What say you?
- Alan Jackson – “Good Time”
- Brooks & Dunn – “Hillbilly Deluxe”
- Dierks Bentley – “Free & Easy (Down the Road I Go)”
- Dixie Chicks – “Sin Wagon”
- Drive-By Truckers – “3 Dimes Down”
- Jason Aldean – “She’s Country”
- Kenny Chesney – “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”
- Kenny Rogers – “The Gambler”
- Lucinda Williams – “Can’t Let Go”
- Martina McBride – “This One’s For the Girls”
- Rascal Flatts – “Me and My Gang”
- Shania Twain – “Any Man of Mine”
- Steve Earle – “Satellite Radio”
