Between Rock Band, Rock Band 2, the Wal-Mart AC/DC track pack and tons of downloadable content, there are upwards of 600 songs playable on Harmonix's popular music franchise. As impressive as that already is, MTV said that it's looking to increase the available songs nearly tenfold to 5,000, according to a report in Billboard. That would truly be an astounding feat and would no doubt require securing a ton of music licenses.

Harmonix have been doing a tremendous job keeping the supply of new songs coming on the Rock Band music store, but this would really up the ante in the battle of the bands. As it stands now, Activision's Guitar Hero has fewer than 100 songs available for sale and has sold an average of just one track per user. Red Octane does intend to finally offer new music on a weekly basis this year as well, but how many songs Guitar Hero will ultimately have by the end of 2009 is unclear.

Music games certainly made their presence felt in 2008, helping to boost sales in a record $21 billion year for the U.S. game industry. That said, for Steve Schnur, EA's worldwide executive of music and marketing, it's more about the relationship that gamers have with music than it is specifically about Rock Band. The next step is to figure out how to better leverage that, he said.

"What comes with the success of Rock Band and Guitar Hero is the microscopic view of what the potential of music in this medium can be," said Schnur.
"There are other titles that continue to be not just successful, but outsell these games by wide margins. So the question isn't, What's the next Rock Band? The question is, When can we take the model of a 24/7, day-by-day musical relationship with not only music games, but with every game? I believe this is the year that's going to happen."