Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

This day has been a long time coming, but Activision’s next iteration of the Guitar Hero cash cow franchise is officially available. Truth be told, the game (and requisite instruments) was sitting on a-many of store shelves yesterday, but there’s nothing like a formal announcement to really push you to take a few hours from work and rock out this evening. There’s a variety of bundles out there ranging from the game alone ($49.99 to $59.99), the game and a guitar ($89.99 to $99.99) and the full-on band kit ($179.99 to $189.99), so make sure you choose wisely when heading out to drop some dough.

Guitar Hero World Tour now rocking store shelves everywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

With all the incompatibility out there among Guitar Hero / Rock Band instruments, it’s a real treat to see something like this. The Director of Publisher Relations at SCEA has posted an update that promises compatibility between instruments and software for upcoming titles; for instance, Guitar Hero: World Tour’s guitars and drums will work with Rock Band 2 and Konami’s Rock Revolution software, and Rock Band 2’s guitar and drum set will work with Guitar Hero: World Tour and with Rock Revolution. Furthermore, the team is still “working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market,” though we are told that an announcement on that could surface “shortly.” Rock ‘n roll harmony, baby.

[Image courtesy of BeSportier]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

If you didn’t think every single third-party peripheral provider would try to snag a piece of the band game pie, we guess you thought wrong, huh? With outfits like Mad Catz and Ion already jumping in, it was only a matter of time before Logitech threw on its tightest jeans, blacked out its blond hair and threw up some horns. Details are admittedly scarce, but the company has promised to provide “premium instruments” for Guitar Hero: World Tour on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii. Rockers can expect the new gear to start shipping “later this year,” though prices, designs and pretty much anything else of importance remains a mystery.

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

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Filed under: Gaming

A little earlier today Activision CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar Hero World Tour to the audience at D — but he wasn’t content doing something trite like picking up a guitar (or drums) and playing himself. Oh no, he trotted out Paula Abdul (to judge), and Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as the front-men for the virtual band. The video’s after the break; it’s a little bit front-heavy during the introduction, but there’s certainly enough gameplay footage in there to get a basic idea of what to expect: Rock Band.

Continue reading Guitar Hero World Tour debuted

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Filed under: Gaming

Now that we’ve been enticed with what Guitar Hero World Tour will look like, GameStop has revealed the upcoming rock simulator’s price and release date. $189.99 will get you the Guitar Hero World Tour “Band Kit” with drum kit, guitar, and microphone. Meanwhile, the “Guitar Kit” at $99.99 will come with just the guitar controller. For those of you who want to use your current controller (assuming current controllers will work), the game-only version will run $59.99 (or $49.99 for the PS2 and Wii). The game’s ship date, as of now, is set at 10/27/08.

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Filed under: Gaming

When it comes to sussing out info on Guitar Hero IV, we’ve seen blurry images and scanned pictures, but now Activision is getting all official on us with a Fall release date and complete feature list. So here’s what we know: Guitar Hero: World Tour (as it’s called) will include a drum kit with cymbals, a new guitar controller, and a microphone. In terms of game modes, look for a Music Studio music creator that will let you compose, record, edit, and share your own music — fear that — and an 8-player “Battle of the Bands” should keep things interesting both on and offline. They’re calling it “The Guitar Hero experience reinvented” and we can’t argue with that, at least until the game actually comes out in Fall 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2. Peep the official trailer and Lenny Kravitz ubiquity after the break.

[Via Boy Genius]

Continue reading Guitar Hero IV gets a name, official features, and release date-ish

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Filed under: Gaming

Now that we know what Guitar Hero IV’s drums will look like, it seems Activision is saying “We don’t need no stinkin’ replicas!” for the game’s guitar controller design. Spotted in Guitar Hero: World Tour’s debut trailer, the new axe appears to be a black or cherry non-Gibson, non-Fender, non-anything instrument of random design. We’re not surprised, as Activision is surely gun-shy after all those lawsuits and what-not.

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Filed under: Gaming

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Filed under: Gaming

Brace yourself — the moment you’ve been waiting all year for has finally arrived. Yes, rock star wannabes, the Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker is finally in major retailers. The Jada Toys’ device, which was showcased at CES, consists of a miniature guitar amplifier, a sensor-laden belt buckle, an assortment of pics and an Air Cartridge, which packs “ten signature guitar riffs” ranging in skill from one to five. Once you rock the wind out of the $29.99 base unit, you can look forward to “encore packs” — which will include themed belt buckles and new Air Cartridges — arriving later this summer for $14.99 each. Oddly enough, we think a “gnarly” is order here.

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digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gaming_news/Gibson_says_Guitar_Hero_violates_patents_Activision_says_no’; We’re not exactly clear on how Gibson’s legal team managed to license all those brand names and guitar designs to Activision for this many Guitar Hero games before realizing that the company maybe-sorta had a patent on the idea, but here we are: Activision filed a lawsuit yesterday asking the US District Court for Central California to invalidate a 1999 Gibson patent on “simulating a musical performance,” because apparently Gibson’s bugging them about it since January. Wait, just January? Seriously, people, you’d have thought this would’ve come up by now. Anyway, Activision says that Gibson is still a “good partner,” just that it “disagrees with the applicability of their patent and would like a legal determination on this.” We’re sure it would. Gibson’s patent apparently involves playing an instrument of some kind along with a pre-recorded concert while wearing what is described as a “3-D headset,” so there seems to be some overlap, but we’ll see what the court says — something tells us explaining Guitar Hero to the judge is going to be relatively amusing.

Update: On reading the patent, Gibson’s system is designed to be used with a “musical instrument” — and no matter what the Guitar Zeros have to say, we don’t think Guitar Hero controllers really qualify. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what the court has to say about that, no? [Thanks, Matt G.]

Disclaimer: Nilay’s a lawyer and a decent Guitar Hero player, but he’s not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice or analysis.

Read - Article on lawsuit
Read - Gibson patent

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Filed under: CES, Gaming

We’ve seen a few useful improvements to air guitar over the years, but Air Guitar Rocker actually managed to snag a license from Activision. Granted, it does take your nerd level to unbelievable heights, but then again, it is slated to cost just $29.95 when it lands in March. Be sure to click on through and catch a totally unprofessional air guitarist chatting it up with Mahalo Daily’s Veronica Belmont after the jump.

Continue reading Video: Air Guitar Rocker thrashes at CES

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Good news! Turns out your right ear wasn’t insane after all. Apparently, Activision has simultaneously fessed up to the lack of stereo on “some” Guitar Hero III discs for the Wii and offered to make amends. Company spokeswoman Rhy-Ming Poon stated that the firm “recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,” and added that it was “currently working with Nintendo and planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game.” For users who already bought in, these re-mastered discs should be available at no cost sometime in early 2008, but specifics beyond that weren’t disclosed. So yeah, at least you can count on a stereo version hitting your mailbox, but unfortunately, it won’t be before the holiday break.

[Thanks, Jason]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We don’t know who thought it’d be smart to mess with the gods of rock, but choosing not to include surround sound support for Guitar Hero III just doesn’t sound like an intelligent move. Nevertheless, a assemblage of Wii gamers are reporting that the game is outputting audio in mono, despite the packaging advertising that Dolby Pro Logic II is supported. We’ve even seen users with Pro Logic II-capable decoders explain that while other Wii titles sound fine, GHIII in particular refuses to cooperate. Supposedly, Activision is busy looking into the problem, but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive time frame for when we can expect a fix. So, any of you shredders out there experiencing something similar, or have we only heard one channel, er, side of the story?

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!