New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV Games and Harmonix game studio announced on Thursday that the forthcoming Beatles-themed version of its popular "Rock Band" music video game will ship worldwide on Sept. 9, 2009. The company had been in talks with Apple Corps, the Beatles' record label, and surviving members of the band or their widows, and the game will mark the first time the music of the Beatles has been released in any digital format.

To date, their songs have never been made available for purchase from digital retailers like iTunes or Amazon MP3.

"The Beatles: Rock Band" will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii for $59, while guitar controllers "modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr" will sell for $99 each.

The game will be developed by Harmonix -- with input from Beatles "LOVE" album co-producer Giles Martin -- published by MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS).

Exclusive content created by Apple Corps, MTV Games and Harmonix will also be made available to fans over the next few months who participate in a pre-order campaign through major retailers.

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http://snipurl.com/d6kus (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com