Representatives for Harmonix and MTV Games announced today that they've partnered with Q Entertainment (founded by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who's known for rhythm games such as Rez, Lumines, Space Channel 5 and others) to bring Rock Band to Japan. This will actually be the first U.S.-originated rock music game to be "heavily localized" for the Japanese market, the companies said.

The Japanese version of Rock Band is expected to feature Japanese musical acts and other Japanese assets – there's been no word on which acts the game will feature or whether those acts might be made available for interested Western gamers via download.

MTV Games has already started its push in Japan. The game's announcement was just featured Saturday at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards - Japan, where a Rock Band trailer was played for the audience. In addition, the U.S. version of Rock Band was "prominently featured" backstage and at the afterparty, allowing Japanese attendees to get a feel for the game.

Rock Band has seen three million unit sales in the West along with 12 million song downloads. Harmonix is hoping the Japanese like rocking out just as much as us Westerners. A release date for Japan was not announced.