Earlier this week as Guitar Hero II began shredding its way into stores, Harmonix pulled back the curtains on their next project called Rock Band. Harmonix, along with the MTV brand and publishing-giant Electronic Arts, will be working together to create perhaps one of the most innovative products in the rhythm gaming genre and we’ve got the details.

Rock Band is very much an extension of the Guitar Hero franchise, instead allowing you to fill in the rest of the band’s roles. It’ll provide gamers with a platform to perform songs from their favorite artists with their friends offline or online as a virtual band using drum, guitar and microphone peripherals. The collaboration of Harmonix, EA, and MTV will lend some new star power and a bigger budget to the new franchise, as Rock Band is set to change the way gamers interact over Xbox Live. Unprecedented deals with many of the largest recording labels in the music industry, spanning many genres of rock, will provide gamers will a large library of music to perform with their friends. Also leading to the inclusion of master recordings from the original bands rather than cover songs.

As for those peripherals, yesterday we spotted a few new product listings on Gamestop.com for the various Rock Band peripherals and although they’re far from confirmed it’s interesting to see what the estimated prices look be. It appears the Drum Set and Wireless Guitar will each retail for $79.99 (USD) with a wired version of the guitar that’ll cost you $59.99. And then for the budding vocalists, the Rock Band Microphone is expected to retail around $39.99. MTV’s representative did mention the game could essentially come packaged with all of the peripherals or separate, but nothing has been confirmed just yet.

The good news is that if you’ve already purchased your guitar with Guitar Hero II, you’ll be able to continue using it with Rock Band. This detail was revealed by Harmonix developer, Jason Boothe on the official Rock Band website so it looks to be official word. So while you burn the midnight oil rocking out in front of your TV with Guitar Hero II tonight remember to get enough practice because the band is forming come Holiday 2007. Expect to hear more about this mega-music game and also check out our review of Guitar Hero II on Xboxic very soon.