Rock Band to get 5,000 songs in 2009 & Guitar Hero gets weekly DLC @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 27, 2009

News: Can Harmonix really pump out 100 songs a week? MTV seems to think so.

An article in the latest issue of Billboard all about the upcoming year has laid a few predictions for 2009 at the feet of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises. According to the article, an unnamed MTV spokesman has said that the Rock Band Store will increase its catalog from 500 songs to 5,000 songs in 2009:

The "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" franchises will keep leading the way in music sales. "Rock Band," which has been the most aggressive to date, offers new music every week, maintains a selection of more than 500 songs on its platform and has sold an average of four songs per user. MTV said it plans to increase the number of available songs this year to as many as 5,000.

While that seems a tad unlikely, the article also mentions that downloadable songs for Guitar Hero: World Tour will begin to be released weekly in 2009:

Meanwhile, "Guitar Hero" has fewer than 100 songs available for sale and has sold an average of one track per user. But Kai Huang, founder/president of "Guitar Hero" publisher Red Octane, said it will begin offering new music on a weekly basis as well in 2009.

Activision has kept the weekly releases up in January, but it looks like they don't have anything planned for the first week of February just yet. Even still, the company's commitment to downloadable songs for Guitar Hero: World Tour is a huge improvement over the anemic downloadable support given to Guitar Hero III.