The return of guitar slinging, drum bashing, and mike toting days are almost upon us once again. Rock Band 4 is right around the corner, and so is its current list of tracks for people to enjoy.

Excited for the new Rock Band 4 coming out later this year? Thankfully, we have Mad Catz producing some quality controllers this time around for fans to really rock out on. With reduced technical issues to deal with, the developers reiterated that they didn't want to innovate for innovation's sake. While the devices have been upgraded slightly since the last title, the same general look and feel of each will feel familiar. For longtime fans of Rockband, all these new changes sound very promising.

Developer Harmonix announced this week that its long-dormant Rock Band music simulation franchise is due for a comeback tour later this year on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Attention Rhythm gamers: all DLC for Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Band Hero games will be vanishing from the online markets by the end of this month. Grab your favorite songs before they are gone for good!

As revealed earlier this year, Harmonix has scheduled the final Rock Band DLC pack to be released on April 2nd, ending over 275 weeks of continuous content updates. That leaves players with a paltry 4,000 songs to jam out with until the end of time. Wait, that's quite a lot of music, isn't it? Doesn't matter, still sad.

It seemed like the days of plastic instruments cluttering up living rooms would never end. On April 2nd, however, Harmonix has announced that DLC support for Rock Band 3 will be terminated as the team moves on to other projects. The songs aren't going anywhere, and sales will continue to occur, but new content is officially at an end. Not only is it a sobering reminder of an era coming to pass, but it also marks the longest DLC support for a franchise in video gaming history, boasting over 275 weeks of continuous releases.

Dance Central is back with another yearly installment. The time-traveling story works in some totally 'fly' songs, but a new leveling system and the same great co-op as part 2 will have you coming back when the story wraps. Find out whether Dance Central 3 is still the dancing game to get in our co-op review.

A new Rock Band game is on the way; apparently, reports of the death of the music game genre were greatly exaggerated. The latest entry into the series, though, is a drastic departure from form. You won't need any plastic instruments to play it, and, sadly, co-op is gone, as well.

It was only a little over a month ago when we told you that Harmonix's parent company, Viacom, was putting the developer up for sale after only owning them for a few years.  Rock Band 3 sales numbers were partially to blame for this, but the $179 million dollar selling price surely contributed.

Viacom, who owns such properties as Paramount Films, MTV, Comedy Central and Harmonix, have reported a 59% loss in earnings for the third quarter of 2010.  From the report - it seems partially to blame on Rock Band 3 development costs and early indicators of poor sales of the game.  Both the film and TV division of Viacom reported an increase in earnings - thereby making the Harmonix investment even more dire.

During the CES last week, Harmonix head honcho Alex Rigopolous discussed a bit of the future of the Rock Band series.  In a refreshing twist, he revealed that Rock Band 3 won't be a 2009 release.

Aerosmith?  AC/DC?  Metallica?  These are big bands, for sure, but it appears the biggest band of all is coming to a video game console near you.  Harmonix and MTV Games, of Rock Band fame, are making an all new game based on the Beatles.  This is no mere Track Pack, though; instead, it's an entirely new game, described as "a musical and visual journey through the Beatles' entire career."  (Yellow Submarine minigames, perhaps?)