Nick Hide

Tuesday 8 April 2008, 6:25pm

Rock Band is how much in the UK?!

We've been lucky enough to have had a copy of Rock Band -- should that be a set? -- in the office for a few weeks, and it rocks brutally hard. Okay, the drums make an annoying tapping that makes the drummer look like a particularly special child, but it's awesome fun on a Friday night after a few beers.

Unfortunately for the rest of you, it's going to be insanely expensive when it launches in the UK on 23 May. It's exclusive to Xbox 360 until sometime in the summer, when it'll be out on PS3, Wii and PS2. Our sister site GameSpot has just got word of the price deets, and they're not pretty. While the game is bundled with the drum kit, mic and one guitar in the US for a very reasonable $170 (£85), it's going to cost a jaw-dropping £179.98 over here. For you drummers struggling with the maths, that's more than twice the price.

Why the 98 pence, guitarists might ask? Because you have to buy the instruments and game separately. The three instruments will set you back a pretty stunning £129.99, but you have to buy the game as well for £49.99. An extra wireless guitar will set you back £59.99 and a drum kit £69.99.

Now, they have to ship the bulky stuff here, and you'd expect early adopters to pay a premium to be the first band on the block. But even with three mates chipping in, that's £60 each, or two new PC games. There's been no explanation from publisher EA for the price explosion, but I'm certain some gamers who were really looking forward to this are going to be extremely unhappy.

While you're waiting for the price to drop, you might like to watch Rory and Andrew playing it on CNET TV. It'll cheer you up, I promise.

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