The Rock Band Network, a new initiative enabling artists and record labels to author their own original recordings into gameplay files and sell their music as playable tracks, is set to launch fully in 2010.

Announced in July, the Rock Band Network will work with Rock Band 2 and be native to Xbox 360, plus users will need to be members of Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online.

The service has been in closed beta for some months now and was originally expected to enter open beta in the US in August, but it missed that deadline.

"We're working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still TBD,” MTV Games said in a statement issued to Kotaku.

“The tools necessary for bands to start authoring and prepare their content for review are already live… The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place. People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch."

In a separate announcement MTV said that the Rock Band platform had reached an “unprecedented milestone by offering more music and artists than any other music videogame via disc and downloadable content”.

The two year old platform now houses more than 1,000 songs and to date, consumers have downloaded more than 60 million tracks from the online Rock Band music store.

Earlier this month MTV and Harmonix parent company Viacom said that the economics of the Rock Band franchise “are improving, though not as quickly as we’d like”.

Speaking in a financial results call, CFO Tom Dooley said that the franchise made a negative contribution to margins in the third quarter, but that the firm expects “it to break even or be slightly profitable in the fourth quarter”.