Time to Get the Band Back Together! Rock Band 4 Announced for Xbone and PS4

Harmonix has announced that fan favorite Rock Band will see its fourth iteration release this year on Xbox One and PS4.

Chief Creative Officer Alex Rigopulos says fans have steadily shown increasing interest in a new generation of the series and after a much needed break, the series will be back in full force with only a few caveats.

They have obviously taken reverse compatibility seriously, what with those dozens (hundreds?) of songs everyone downloaded for the previous titles, and have serendipitously included the ability to transfer most of those tracks in to the new sessions set list. The only sticking points are that disc-based music is a no-go as well as the fact that you can only transfer from consoles in the same family, i.e. Xbox 360 to Xbone OR PS3 to PS4 only, no cross-breeding allowed.

In addition to keeping your purchased tracks, Harmonix are also working with Microsoft and Sony to make existing peripherals compatible with the new consoles, so you’ll hopefully not have even more plastic guitars hanging around…

Another lesson they’ve learned from history is that this will remain more of a live service than an annual release. Any new updates or expansions will be made to this single core game and not come on a separate disc as Rock Band 5 9 months from now; instead Rock Band 4 will last this entire console generation with new tracks and features added along the way.

There isn’t a solid release date set yet, but Harmonix are already taking pre-orders for new, multi-colored instruments through their website at RockBand.com/preorder

Source: IGN