Rock Band/WMG

The reason HMX has been releasing so much Classic Rock DLC lately...
Aside from the obvious reason of wanting to tempt new players and convince Guitar Heroes to jump ship? After all these years of making set-lists that no one's ever satisfied with, they're exhausted of the genre and have decided to get the obligatory staples from the 60's and 70's out of the way. With their future products no longer being bogged down by the need to include these, they can instead be more creative in putting sets together, digging out some true gems from music history that people may not have heard or that work better from a gameplay standpoint. Being effectively independent will also keep the giant companies breathing over their shoulders from vetoing non-hits that would work well.

In other words, Rock Band 4 or whatever they make next will be lacking in any of the legendary classics (we'll already have most of them), but will finally have a set-list the fanbase can agree is good.
 * It could be that they wait to release Rock Band 4 later, and release a game such as Pop Band or Country Band first/ It could still use the same platform, but filter key genres by default. If they did that, the DLC following the release of a game would be mostly in the genre of that game.
 * This WMG, however, seems to presume that what the Unpleasable Fanbase hates about the setlists so far is "the need to include...the obligatory staples," which I don't think is even close to true. If anything, the "obligatory staples" are what seem to be received the best by the wider RB-playing community; "Bohemian Rhapsody" is probably rather more of a hit at parties than "Oh My God." Taking out everything that can be picked-up and recognized immediately upon playing would just be Harmonix shooting their own sales in the foot.
 * And as for "we'll already have most of them"? While Harmonix should absolutely be commended for having the best range and variety of classics available for their platform, that's a very deep well and they've only just begun to really dip into it. Legendary performers like the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and Bob Dylan all have but a single song available, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure a lot of fantastic classic content is on the near horizon ("Barracuda" drops later today, for example), but as Bachman-Turner Overdrive once exclaimed, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
 * Bohemian Rhapsody was well-received because because it has fun harmonies, a great guitar-solo and interesting keys. The fact that it happens to be a popular hit was just a bonus. Think of it this way: Holy Diver by Dio is easily a bigger hit, but HMX went with Rainbow in the Dark because the vocals and guitar would be more difficult, and it has keys. See the logic there? Go on the RB forums and look at most people's Ultimate Setlist threads about their dream setlist. Chances are they'll be overflowing with Top 40 hits, and maybe 12 of them will have keys, 8 will have harmonies, 5 will have female singers, and the vast majority of them will have next to no difficulty, with a few token high-difficulty tunes (probably Slayer). These sort of threads tend to be made by musically ignorant folk who likely haven't listened to the songs they're picking, instead going by the logic that "It's popular, so people will like it." They think slapping together "the best" of punk, alternative or soul is enough for a good game. HMX doesn't put together setlists this way. Personally I might not care for several picks in RB3's setlist, but I can see the logic behind their inclusion: multiple language-vocals, over 50 songs with harmonies, over 60 with keys, decent diversity to all genres, a minimum of uninteresting parts for all instruments and several songs people would want to learn on guitar/bass.
 * SO let's be perfectly clear: appealing to the dinosaurs of classic rock radio is shooting yourself in the foot. These people think it's okay to say you "love" Queen when all you know is We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody. Give them that and their short attention-span will look elsewhere. Guitar Hero tried that strategy, and their creative-well quickly ran dry, to the point they were including Kiss songs just because they're Kiss. Many reviewers of WoR noted how they were digging from the bottom of the barrel for hits by that point (after all, there's only so much Been Caught Stealing, Ring of Fire, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Paint It Black, School's Out and Anarchy in the U.K. to go around). There's nothing wrong with including hits for the sake of it. Overdo it though and you'll write yourself into a corner; if these songs fall flat as a disc-song, they should instead be DLC (this attitude seems to have worked so far for HMX, since it has a way of attracting new players who want only certain hits). The point is, HMX makes setlists for music-fans, not pop-fans; they're the only people holding the series up right now.

Rock Band takes place in a universe where none of the musicians that we know and love exist.
Our band doesn't just play covers, they actually wrote all of these songs in this alternate universe. So it's not that we're getting super famous just by covering songs (because that would be lame), we actually play the greatest song writers to exist, ever.
 * That counts as a WMG? Isn't that the premise?
 * What about songs where the artist addresses themselves or their band mates by name? ("Do it, Robby, do it!"). Or songs about the singer's personal experiences (Under the Bridge) and with references to where they came from (Who Are You). What about songs that only make sense within the scope of the time period or context of world events at the time ("Gimme Shelter")?

Your band decided to go out with style

 * Ultimately, it was never shown that the band had any plans of returning to active-touring. Maybe they decided to vanish completely (presumably after they get bored of the tropics) in order to to ensure they become legends while they're ahead. Since most bands never do this, this could be seen as the best possible ending.

All Rock Band games, including Rock Band 3, are wildly successful
It's been made clear by recent historical events -- namely, Electronic Arts cutting Harmonix loose -- that there probably won't be a Rock Band 4. Some think this is because Rock Band 3 failed.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

Rock Band as a whole prides itself on downloadable content. There are millions, or maybe zillions, of songs in their music store, with more added every week. Eventually, every song that is downloadable at all will be downloadable from there -- but more songs get published every week...

The real profits aren't from the games proper but from the downloads. And all but one of the Rock Band games for XBoxen and Playstations will take songs from any of the others, and vice versa. Have a problem with the songs in your setlist? You know where to get more...

Rock Band 3 will not have a sequel because it can be expanded indefinitely.