Following the revelation of Rock Band's launch date (for the Xbox 360, at least) this morning, Electronic Arts has confirmed the game's price. It ain't coming cheap.

The standalone game will set you back £49.99/€69.99. Once you've got that, you'll need an instrument peripheral or three to play it with. The 'Instrument Edition', which includes a guitar, drums and microphone - but no copy of the game - will cost you £129.99/€169. That brings your total up to £179.98.

The US bundle, which includes the game, a guitar controller, drum set, and microphone comes at a recommended retail price of $169.99 - £86.30 by today's conversion rate.

Alternatively, you can just buy a standalone peripheral to go with the game. The guitar will cost you £59.99/€79.99, while the drums will set you back £69.99/€89.99. That brings your total up to £109.98 or £119.98, depending on which instrument you favour.

Guitar Hero III with a Les Paul guitar controller will set you back £74.99.

OK. So, we know tax isn't included in the US pricing for the game, but unless the credit crunch has hit the States harder than we thought and its sales tax has gone up to 100%, something is amiss.

SPOnG has contacted EA to find out why we're getting charged more than double what US gamers are paying, but no comment was available at the time of press.

Rock Band will be available in May on the 360. You can find out more here.

^{Source: MCV}