Beatles Playing for Keeps with "Rock Band" Game

The Beatles elevated popular music to an art form. Now they are looking to do the same for music video games with the colorful, inviting The Beatles: Rock Band.

Photo: Beatles Playing for Keeps with "Rock Band" Game

Expanding beyond such hugely successful games as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, The Beatles lets three singers sing along karaoke-style (previous games let only one) and a total of up to six play simultaneously (others play guitar, bass and drum controllers), USA Today reports.

According to The New York Times, Luckily, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the widows of George Harrison and John Lennon, seem to understand that the Beatles are not a museum piece, that the band and its message ought never be encased in amber.

The Beatles: Rock Band is nothing less than a cultural watershed, one that may prove only slightly less influential than the band’s famous appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. By reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience.

The future of music games depends on attracting newcomers, which is why the Beatles game is so important to MTV.

"It has to be for older people," Wedbush Morgan's Pachter says. "They're sitting around waiting for something to come along that appeals to them. So they're 40-something people that have looked at ' Guitar Hero ' but are not sure why they want to learn Aerosmith or Metallica songs. They see this and think, 'I can get into this, '" Reuters informs.