Remember the days when seemingly everyone had a bunch of bulky, plastic musical instruments in their house? It looks like developer Harmonix may be trying to bring the rhythm genre back into vogue.

According to Bloomberg Business, Harmonix is developing an all-new Rock Band title for the current generation of consoles. Rock Band was one of the last major franchises in the once-booming rhythm genre, but it’s been dormant for a while — the last mainline game in the series was 2010’s Rock Band 3. This was followed only by the downloadable spin-off Rock Band Blitz in 2012, which was played with a controller and didn’t require any external accessories.

The news follows a recent survey conducted by Harmonix to gauge fan interest in the series. No further information on the new Rock Band has been made available at this time.

My Opinion:

This news is super interesting.  It seems to me that the rhythm genre has been experiencing something of a renaissance lately, with games like Hatsune Miku: Project Diva, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, and worldwide hit Cytus succeeding with both critics and consumers. The big thing that separates those games from the Rock Band of old? They’re designed to be played with normal controllers and/or touchscreens, instead of dedicated plastic peripherals. For that reason, I think this new game will be closer to Rock Band Blitz than Rock Band 3, for better or worse. I know that there are a lot of people who would love to see a return to form for the series — I’m one of them! — but given the current state of the market, I don’t see it happening.

Aaron Dobbe is an Associate Writer at MONG specializing in Nintendo but playing a bit of everything else too. Follow him on Facebook and pester him to get a Twitter.