According to the Wall Street Journal’s well-connected Bothans, Viacom and MTV Games will be announcing today their acquisition of the rights to use Beatles songs in Rock Band. Since the Beatles seemingly invented pop music, this is no small get:

The Beatles have licensed songs to MTV Networks’ Rock Band videogame series, according to several people familiar with the matter, a coup for the Viacom Inc. unit in its battle with rival Activision Blizzard Inc. for supremacy in the world of rock-and-roll videogames.

The deal, which is set to be announced on Thursday by Viacom’s MTV and the band’s own Apple Corps Ltd., makes the Beatles the next and biggest major band to license its songs to a music-oriented videogame, joining Aerosmith, Metallica, AC/DC and others.

I wasn’t particularly amused when Activision started down the road of exclusively licensing certain marquee acts, because I knew Harmonix would have to follow suit (AC/DC) and we’d have a nice little balknization of music content across the two main franchises, just like Blu-ray and HD DVD all over again.

And maybe Activision is regretting it now as well since this sort of bites them in the ass. The Beatles. That’s like having Superman on your side – if you’re a Beatles fan, anyways. (If you’re an Elvis fan, you still need to wait.)

UPDATE – ok so it’s not Rock Band content (except when it is), but rather a new game… hrm.

(thanks mimc)