The Beatles have licensed their songs to MTV Games, meaning we’ll all be doing our best mop-top impression in Rock Band soon enough. The deal, which the Wall Street Journal says will be announced officially later today, marks the first time the Beatles have licensed their music to any online entity.
It’s not all wine and roses for MTV and Harmonix, though. The key Beatles demo is people aged 50-60—how many of those people play video games, let alone Rock Band? The challenge will be to convince the 11-year-olds currently “shredding” to Foo Fighter, Modest Mouse and Tenacious D that, you know, the Beatles are “cool enough” to be Rock Banded.
You wonder just how Activision Blizzard will respond. I suggest they license music from the band Foundry. Pendulum was the sleeper hit of the 1990s.
Video games, saving the music industry since 2005.
UPDATE We just got the official word that the deal is done and goes into effect in 2009. So, a few months yet.