Rock Band 3 Pro tracks to cost extra

Bad news for those looking forward to the new Pro Mode guitar tracks in Rock Band 3 - they're going to cost you more than the regular songs.

"All DLC released for Rock Band 3 will be fully Rock Band 3-compatible, which means it’ll come with Pro Mode for keyboard and drums, harmony mode, etc," MTV's Paul DeGooyer told IGN.

"The only thing that’s more difficult for us in terms of authoring time is the guitar stuff, so we’ve decided to sell Pro Mode for guitar separately. If you’re not interested in Pro Mode for guitar, you can still get the DLC that should conform to our current DLC pricing, and you get Pro Mode for all your other instruments."

At the moment, DeGooyer pointed out, your average downloadable Rock Band song costs $1.99. Purchasing Pro Mode for guitar will cost an extra dollar.

"It’s not going to be five bucks or anything. We think it’s a really fair price," he said. "The alternative would be of course to include it (in the regular download) and up the price for everybody, which I don’t think is really fair."

According to DeGooyer, not all tracks will have a Pro Guitar mode. There are plans to retrofit Pro Mode to some tracks already in the Rock Band library, but the details are yet to be locked down.

"We haven’t completely worked out exactly how we would be able to get it to market, in a way that recognises people who have already purchased it, and thus be able to supply the updated file at a discount, which would be our preference," said DeGooyer.

Rock Band 3 is out on 29th October.