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Guitar Hero: World Tour has only officially been on shelves for a day or so now, but unhappy PS3 customers are already making a fuss — the game’s new drumkit isn’t compatible with Rock Band 2. That’s a major disappointment — having redundant guitars because Activision and Harmonix can’t play nice is annoying enough, but two drumkits is downright ridiculous — and it’s doubly irritating because Sony promised it would bring the hammer down and make sure all these peripherals were cross-compatible. The Xbox 360 kits seem to work with each other, so it’s probably just a bug and Harmonix is apparently working on patch. In the meantime, you can probably take out your frustation with this crazy Gene Simmons axe-shaped guitar controller that’s due out on Halloween — we’re not sure if we’d pay $80 for the privilege of pretending to be in KISS while playing a video game, but if you’re in the Army, Amazon is taking preorders now.

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Guitar Hero: World Tour drums not Rock Band 2 compatible; Gene Simmons guitar controller not compatible with taste originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Gaming

Guitar Hero: World Tour has only officially been on shelves for a day or so now, but unhappy PS3 customers are already making a fuss — the game’s new drumkit isn’t compatible with Rock Band 2. That’s a major disappointment — having redundant guitars because Activision and Harmonix can’t play nice is annoying enough, but two drumkits is downright ridiculous — and it’s doubly irritating because Sony promised it would bring the hammer down and make sure all these peripherals were cross-compatible. The Xbox 360 kits seem to work with each other, so it’s probably just a bug and Harmonix is apparently working on patch. In the meantime, you can probably take out your frustation with this crazy Gene Simmons axe-shaped guitar controller that’s due out on Halloween — we’re not sure if we’d pay $80 for the privilege of pretending to be in KISS while playing a video game, but if you’re in the Army, Amazon is taking preorders now.

Read - Guitar Hero: World Tour drums incompatibility
Read - Gene Simmons Axe Guitar

PS3 Guitar Hero: World Tour drums not Rock Band 2 compatible; Gene Simmons guitar controller not compatible with taste originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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Ah, how easily phrases can be misconstrued when you’re not absolutely precise in what you say. While the intarwebz have been ablaze with speculation about the elusive “new peripheral” on the forthcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour title, Neversoft project director Brian Bright has delivered a copious amount of non-potable water to the scene in the form of this sobering news. There actually won’t be any new “instrument,” per se; rather, the PS3 version of the game will include a MIDI import feature that gives PC-using musicians the ability to import rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, keyboards and drum tracks in as a GH Tunes song. For undisclosed “hardware reasons,” the Xbox 360 version can only handle the skins. Eh, 2 stars.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy, image courtesy of GameZone]

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The folks at G4 have a juicy tidbit on the upcoming Guitar Hero World Tour cacophony of simulated instruments: there might be another one in the works. G4 cites Neversoft’s Brian Bright, who let slip that a new peripheral is coming, and will be designed specifically for the music-creating Studio mode (pictured above). The logical choice is a keyboard, since it’s the preferred method for entering melodies and other mundane tasks by boring people, but we’re secretly gunning for Guitar Hero Bassoon — check out the video after the break to see why.

[Via Joystiq]

Continue reading Another Guitar Hero World Tour peripheral in the works?

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It’s sad that the petty bickering between Activision, Harmonix, and Konami required console makers to step up and ensure that gamers didn’t end up with piles of redundant plastic instrument controllers, but things are starting to get better — just as Sony did yesterday, Microsoft announced that it’s requiring Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution to be cross-compatible on the Xbox 360. The post on Redmond’s Gamerscore blog isn’t chock-full of details, but we’ll commend Microsoft and Sony for getting involved to make sure that all the lawsuits and infighting don’t adversely affect their customers — now if they could only find a way to make those drumkits actually fit into a living room, we’d be all set.

[Via Joystiq]

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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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Good news, plastic rockers — Activision announced at E3 today that its upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour game will work with Rock Band’s controllers, including the drumkit, and that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on Xbox 360 has received an update that “should” make the game compatible with Harmonix’s axes. Nothing too wild on the Aerosmith tip, as the guitars should just work now (finally!), but Activision’s had to do some work to make World Tour play nice: the game is designed for a five-pad drumkit, but it’ll compress down to four to work with Rock Band’s set. See? Friends all around. Is that so hard, guys?

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We’ve already seen plenty of Guitar Hero World Tour’s drums, but while we’ve heard rumblings of a touchpad for the new guitar, this is the first time we’ve seen it in the flesh. IGN has a preview of all the new gear, and says the strip will be used for fiddling around with notes during sustains, tapping to play notes, and for interfacing with the new music creator. The guitar is also larger than its other toy guitar predecessors. In other news, the drums are pressure sensitive, the mic is pretty plain, and the music creation software is completely off the chain. Unfortunately, you won’t be allowed to record vocals for songs, but otherwise you can pretty much build anything you’d want with the software. In even better news, the Wii version of World Tour will share all these features, and while we promised ourselves we wouldn’t install two full sets of fake band gear in our living room, we’re starting to get some serious cravings here.

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A ton of supposedly-leaked pre-E3 game info apparently hit the net today; we’ll be directing you to Joystiq for the full skinny, but of particular interest to Engadget readers:

• It looks like Microsoft might be finding some middleground between Nintendo’s Miis and PlayStation 3’s Home personages. Dubbed Avatars (above), they appear to literally look like the result of a tawdry tryst between your Home character and your Mii. For shame!
• That “Lips” project you may have heard about from Microsoft is starting to resemble a Singstar-like “music and singing game,” with two wireless, motion-sensitive mics, an online store, and the added ability to sing to music from CDs or MP3s.
• The Guitar Hero World Tour instrument bundle could go for $180, and might include a “touch-sensitive neck slide” (rockin’). It’s going to take more than that to top Rock Band (and Rock Band 2), though.
• A new Tony Hawk title might just land on Xbox 360 and PS3 with a board-like peripheral (perhaps akin to the Balance Board). We’re hoping you’ll be able to do more with it than faux-skate.

Of course, all of this is still strictly in the rumor pile, so keep your pants on until we hit up E3 and have a chance to sort the fact from fiction.

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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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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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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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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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