Viacom (NYSE: VIA) is currently in talks with several buyers for game developer Harmonix, said Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s president and CEO, at the start of the company’s Q3 earnings call. He didn’t say anything about the poor sales that have plagued the unit subsequent to its high with its release…

Viacom (NYSE: VIA) has had enough of falling sales for gaming brand Rock Band and so the company has decided to sell its maker, Harmonix. The announcement was made in conjunction with Viacom’s Q3 earnings report, which apart from a $299 million writedown related to Harmonix, a classified “discontinued operation,”…

Viacom (NYSE: VIA), which has seen sales of its Rock Band franchise slow amid the gaming slump, is asking for a refund on its 2007 earnout payment to the Harmonix founders, according to a company 10-K filed earlier today. In October 2006, Harmonix, developer of the Rock Band franchise, was…

The Beatles: Rock Band may have trumped Guitar Hero 5 in terms of both unit sales and actual revenue, but less consumer interest in both franchises has actually dragged down game industry sales overall by about 50 percent. Gamasutra dug into sales for both franchises across all consoles—including downloadable song…

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr helped *Microsoft* kick off its E3 keynote with a wave of harmonized sound: a trailer and gameplay footage from the upcoming The Beatles: Rock Band. The game drops on September 9—coinciding with the release of all 13 of The Beatles’ remastered albums—and includes previously unreleased…

Buried within Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA) 10-K annual report filed yesterday with SEC is an interesting and elusive number: the earnout that the developers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band will get over the next two years. In October 2006, the parent company Harmonix was bought by MTV Networks for $175…