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EA have announced that Rock Band will finally make it’s way to the UK, France and Germany on May 22nd with the game set to be a timed exclusive to the Xbox 360 as rumoured in recent days. The game will also feature a number of exclusive tracks as previously revealed at Play.com Live back in March. Pricing has been announced at £129.99 for an instrument pack which includes the drum kit, guitar and microphone only. No copy of the game will be included in this package. The game itself will retail separately at the RRP of £49.99. Instruments will also be available to buy individually at the price of £59.99/€19.99 for wireless guitars and £69.99/€89.99 for the drum kit. The instrument pack and game will come to a combined price of £179.98 RRP, £30 more than an Xbox 360 Arcade console can be purchased for.  Due to the size of the product, shipping costs will be high for online retailers leaving little room to discount.

Many gamers have reacted in disbelieve on message boards at the price announcement, coming in at more than double that of the full package in the US. Amazon.com currently sell Rock Band Special edition on Xbox 360 for $147.99 (£74.53). At todays exchange rate the equivalent PAL version comes in at $357.35. Worse news is yet to come as EA have also announced that all downloadable songs will be priced at 160 MS points. In the US prices vary from 80 - 160 points.