Rock Band Pro DLC Comes at a Premium, Song Exporting Confirmed

It won’t be long now until wannabe musicians have a chance to prove their chops with Rock Band 3‘s Pro mode. The new setting will include actual finger placements and strumming patterns for guitarists and bassists, as well as enhanced drums to make the whole band setting decidedly more realistic. As it turns out though, players looking to download new Pro-compatible songs in the future may have to pay extra, as Harmonix looks to recoup the extra costs associated with preparing and charting such songs.

Harmonix’s John Drake has stated that Pro DLC will “probably” be more expensive due to the fact that Harmonix has “a lot more work to do” to work out specific tabs and note charts. Basically, instead of running each song through a program that condenses it into five colored buttons the team must now accurately chart out every song and make sure it is playable in digital form. Drake didn’t mention how much extra work that required, but it’s likely fairly substantial.

The major question that remains unanswered is how much more will Pro DLC cost? Standard DLC retails for $2, so if the Pro DLC went for $3 or maybe even $4 we doubt there’d be much uproar. Once you break $5 per song things start to get dicey, as suddenly gamers are choosing between a single Rock Band track and much meatier DLC or even, in some cases, full games. Also up in the air is the issue of if ALL available DLC will support Pro mode or only certain tracks. This is another potential stumbling block as the potential musicians begin to break ranks from those who just want to pretend their rock stars without learning the hard stuff. We’ll keep you posted on details as they become available.

In related news, Drake has also confirmed that players can export the Rock Band 2 song library to the new title for a nominal fee. This is the same service as was available the first time around, so we expect the original price of $5 to remain the standard. Drake has said that the team is hoping to get all the songs moved over to Rock Band 3 but “a couple of songs could get complicated.” This “complication” is often due to rights-holders demanding higher licensing fees or otherwise being hard to work with when it comes to allowing their music to be featured in a game. Of course, with literally thousands of other songs available on the Rock Band platform it’s hard to get too upset if one or two are left behind.

So who out there is planning to learn how to play guitar for real after picking up Rock Band 3? Maybe we can start a band and then go audition for America’s Got Talent or something next year. Hey, if the crazy yodeling lady with the beehive can get to the quarterfinals then a legit Rock Band rock band should have a great shot at success.