Matt Martin 09:08 (BST)
23/06/2008

Representatives for the Beatles are in talks with Activision and MTV to expand the group's licensing deal to include videogames, according to a new report by the Financial Times.

Any deal would be worth "several million dollars" according to sources, and could be reached within a matter of weeks.

Activision publishes the Guitar Hero franchise, while MTV Games is the company behind Rock Band.

But any potential deal would need to be approved by EMI, which owns the master recordings of the Beatles, and Apple Corps, the company set up to manage Beatles business interests.

Apple Corps has been selective with its licensing and has yet to release Beatles recordings on any online digital format, although according to the FT, the company has been more active in the past year since Jeff Jones took over the role of chief executive.

Activision has had considerable success with the Guitar Hero franchise in recent year's, with a new portable version due for the DS, and a dedicated version featuring US rockers Aerosmith set for release.

Although MTV Games' Rock Band is the new contender in the lucrative music gaming genre, it is also proving successful, with the company announcing back in February that it had already achieved downloads of over 3 million songs in the US alone.