Man, this article is old, it was written back when I got my first 486 Mhz computer. Did they even have blogs and news articles on computers back then?
Anyways, I just came back from an electronics store where they have the Beatles Rock Band on display. I thought to myself, I though Michael Jackson owned the rights to their music…but he just died and the rumor is that Jackson was to give the rights back to the Beatles after his death.
I know a lot of game builders have half their work done when they use an pre-built game engine but how did McCartney and Starr turn that around so fast?
The deals were made and the contracts signed well before MJ’s death and in any case the actual management of the catalog was not personally handled by MJ but had been taken over by Sony at a time Michael needed cash; lawful contracts involving corporate entities survive the deaths of the individual humans involved; Paul, Ringo, Olivia Harrison and Yoko were on board for their share of the rights; so were George and Giles Martin for production. Everyone would get a beautiful big pile of lovely money. Therefore, Beatles Rock Band and Beatles Album Remasters produced all through last year and dropping on 9/09 (as in The One After…).
The game was demoed at this year’s e3 which took place June 2-4, which was 3 weeks before Michael Jackson’s death. Also, he only had a 50% stake in the tracks he “owned”. And some of the tracks in the game he owned no part of.
No doubt.
Anyone annoyed by how much press and advertising this game is getting? Ugh, it’s just Rock Band with new songs. Somebody in upper management must be thinking this is the opportunity for their little fake music-instruments game to be pushed out to the non-gameplaying masses.
Moderator speaketh: devaddy, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, we’re glad to have you with us. However, please, we have no idea what article you’re referring to. Our Archives have hundreds of columns. Could you please provide a link, or some sort of clue? It would be much appreciated, and would probably get you more interesting discussion.