E3: Real Beatles show off game

Microsoft has shown off The Beatles: Rock Band at its E3 conference in Los Angeles, revealing 10 of the game's songs (there are 45 on-disc) and talking about downloadable content.

Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr even showed up. “The game is good. The graphics are very good, and, er, we were great,” said Starr.

“We never thought we’d end up as androids,” McCartney added. “Thank you very much for having us on your game show.”

The 10 songs listed were “I Saw Her Standing There”, “I Feel Fine”, “Day Tripper”, “Taxman”, “Octopus’s Garden”, “Here Comes The Sun”, “Get Back”, “I Am The Walrus”, “Back In The USSR” and “All You Need Is Love”.

The last of those will be a downloadable Xbox Live exclusive, with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders.

Full albums will be made available to download after launch, starting with Abbey Road.

We also got to see the Harmonix “house band” playing “Day Tripper”, with three vocalists doing harmonies while two guitarists went at it – one of whose guitars had all sorts of buttons up and down the neck.

The drummer, meanwhile, had a massive bass drum amongst his set.

Elsewhere, Giles Martin, who is reworking the songs from the original multi-track masters, said he was excited about how it’s going and promised never-before-heard studio chat from John, Paul, George and Ringo in the game.

The Beatles: Rock Band is due out on 9th September and will cost GBP 179 / EUR 199, which consists of a Hofner Bass controller, drums (with Beatles drum head), a microphone and stand.

John Lennon's Rickenbacker 325 and George Harrison's Gretsch Duo Jet will cost 90 quid apiece as separate extras.