Harmonix Talks Beat Detection Technology

Harmonix, the creator of Guitar Hero has moved onto Rock Band, but that’s not the only music-based game they’ve been working on. They recently released Phase, a rhythm game for iPods with the same idea as Guitar Hero or Rock Band in mind, only the game can take your own music and create tracks for you to play out of it.

While it’s only a simple iPod game now, the interesting concept would be to apply this technology to a future version of Rock Band or other Harmonix project. In a Kotaku interview, Phase lead producer Kassoon Crooker was asked about this possibility.

We have soundtracks, downloadable content, and this is the next step: re-experiencing your own music in a game. We wouldn’t be able to separate out all the instruments and what not, but I think you’ll see this kind of technology used in other Harmonix products down the road.

That sounds great, but one has to wonder if that wouldn’t ruin the potential market for downloadable content. For the average person, wouldn’t using your own music beat the hell out of downloadable content?