I have really been looking forward to the release of Rock Band in the UK for quite some time now; seeing as it was released on the 20th November 2007 in the US, and a leap forward in time for the UK release on the 23rd May 2008.

So you may remember about the price drop. Well when EA first announced the crazy price for Rock Band originally it was somewhere in the region of £180, with software and instruments, which converts to $356 and with the US launch price at roughly $169 (£85 converted) more than doubling the price for no reason at all.

But that was last month, and people thought that the newly proposed price of around £120 would be far better, even thought that is $240 when converted anyway.

So I pop into a few retailers this afternoon to check out the prices, the bundles etc. I look in 3 retailers. They are GAME, HMV and Gamestation. Each and every one was selling the pack of instruments without the game (they were selling those separately), and every time I asked, “Can I get a pack with the game” they would say “Sorry, but you have to buy the game separately”

I suppose this plays into the EA motto of skews but I also did notice that HMV were selling the Drums & Guitar on there own too.

The prices are as follows:

1x Rock Band Set of 3 - Mic, Drums, Guitar - £129.99 ($255)
1x Rock Band Disc - £44.99 ($87)
TOTAL = £173 ($342)

What a bloody rip off, it’s even coming to the point where I can buy the XBOX 360 for cheaper, WITH THE HARD DRIVE.

I did some research and found out that the Rock Band instruments are made in China, then I found out the weight of the box WITH THE GAME costs a mere £15 ($30).

But the most annoying thing about this is that all these “apparent” fees that have been added onto the price of Rock Band are non-existent, the VAT for the UK is 17.5% meaning £129 = £22.58 VAT, so that’s £107, next is the shipping costs, so that’s -£15 = £92, so lets convert that.

£92 into USD iiisssssss…..$182!!!!

Tadaaaa!…and yet it’s still MORE expensive than the US version, which is now retailing on Amazon.com for a mere $149.

Bahh Humbug is all I can say.

PS: I was in a GAME shop and I quoted the prices from the US versions of Rock Band (with the game) and he said and I quote:

Well that’s America; everything’s cheap in America isn’t it

I had a picture of Jack Moore and decided to do it up, insted of sticking a unibrow or adding a mostache, I decided to paint all over the image and take away the original, leaving me with the one below:

OMG! I Just only woke up this morning to find 4 inches worth of snow on the ground, and knowing me dashed for the camera, I only realised as I was taking pictures that I was about 2-4 hours early and the snow falling was really dieing down, but you should have seen it when it started, wowzers!

I made a load of snow men, and to make a very good ball of snow, all I needed was a grassy field, and a snow ball around 5-8 inches in overall thickness, roll it on the ground and around 30 seconds of rolling, would reasult in a ball around 15x larger than what you had, and I havent gotten around to talking about Thorpe Park theme park that I went to yesterday, but lucky I didn’t go today

This is some of the best snow I have seen for ages, but I do remember that it wasn’t that long ago that Olly Ray and my other friend Christopher Andrews were making snow balls that baffled the passer by.

I got some pictures from the thing, and dashed around with a video camera and a NICON Coolpix 3200 in my hand, and snapped a few shots (and I thought it was Spring!):

Sci-Fi Level 1 - DeathmatchX25, originally uploaded by Olly Newport.

The design of a level for a FPS that I am making…and it always helps to have a design on paper.