Harmonix has also created standalone that either contain a selection of downloadable content, or a selection of band-specific songs. The company has also designed the to allow bands and labels to publish their songs as Rock Band tracks that can be purchased by players. To date, over 13 million copies of Rock Band titles have been sold netting more than 1 billion in total sales. Over 1,000 songs are available in the franchise library, and over 60 million downloadable song purchases have been made.
Main series In 2006, both Harmonix and RedOctane were bought separately, by and respectively; MTV paid 175 million to acquire Harmonix. RedOctane continued to publish the Guitar Hero series, bringing on board for development duties. According to Harmonix Vice President of Product Development, Greg LoPiccolo, the Harmonix team had already envisioned the possibility of different instruments before they were completed with the Guitar Hero series. Rock Band took twenty months and approximately 200 million to develop.
Harmonix was able to use MTV's music licensing abilities to secure the licensing rights for the music in the game. Rock Band was praised by critics and was highly successful, leading to the release of a sequel, less than a year later.
In part due to development of The Beatles: Rock Band, Harmonix announced that Rock Band 3 will break the 'annual release cycle' and was not released in 2009. Rock Band 3 was officially announced by Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman on March 9, 2010, to be released by the end of 2010. The game will continue to be distributed by Electronics Arts after the two companies reached a continued agreement for distribution of the series, which was initially set to expire in March 2010, with the final EA-distributed title to have been Green Day: Rock Band. Band specific games In October 2008, Harmonix, along with MTV Games, announced an exclusive agreement with to produce a standalone title, titled The Beatles: Rock Band, based on the Rock Band premise and featuring the music of. The game was released on September 9, 2009, coinciding with the release of remastered collections of the Beatles' albums, and features a visual and musical history of the Beatles with United Kingdom-released versions of songs from their albums through. Harmonix stated, despite building on the Rock Band gameplay, that the game is not a Rock Band branded title, and that the songs will not be available as for the Rock Band series. The agreement had been in discussion for more than 17 months prior to the official announcement.
The game itself was a result of a chance meeting between, 's son, and Van Toffler, president of MTV, shortly after Harmonix's acquisition. Dhani was able bridge the shareholders of Apple Corps with Harmonix, leading to the game's development; as such, Dhani has since been hired as an employee of Harmonix, working on improving their instrument controllers. Following on the success of The Beatles: Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band was announced at the 2009 for release in 2010, and will include the band's songs (including '), avatars of the band's members and venues specific for the group. The track list will be fully exportable to other Rock Band games.
Spin-offs On June 2, 2008, Harmonix announced that it had begun codeveloping a Japanese version of Rock Band with for exclusive release in Japan on the,,. According to Harmonix, Rock Band: Japan will be 'the first US-originated rock music game to be heavily localized for the Japanese market'. A release date has not yet been announced.