According to Activision themselves, the Guitar Hero franchise dominated the NDP sales charts for the first 9 months of 2008. Activision attributes this success (at least in Q2) to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero: On Tour. Considering Guitar Hero: World Tour came out recently and Guitar Hero: Decades is still yet to come before the end of the year, you can expect to look back at 2008 as the year Guitar Hero ruled the world. Or at least the first year.

Activision
via Joystiq

You’d think two $150 music games that each take up half a room with their redundant peripherals would be in direct competition with each other. Not according to Dan Teasdale, lead designer of Rock Band:

At least from a design perspective, we’re going after two completely different audiences. Rock Band is about an authentic band gameplay experience. We want people to have fun at parties, and we want to reach a wide audience. [...] Call of Duty and Halo are both great franchises you can enjoy. It’s the same with Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

I think it’s more like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Both have a lot of great games, and gamers could potentially enjoy both consoles, but for a lot of people, it’s not realistically plausible to buy both.

Eurogamer

Four new screens of Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades were revealed by Activision today, and it looks pretty much how you’d expect a sequel that’s essentially 100% compatible with the original to look. You can check out the above screen plus three more after the break.

There’s also an image of the logo there. What’s it look like? I’m going to guess it’s the original On Tour logo, with “Decades” slapped underneath. Drum roll, please…

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Sorry to get everyone’s hopes up, but the teams behind Guitar Hero: World Tour have clarified that the supposed leaked setlist for the game posted earlier is a fake. A representative confirmed that while some of the songs included on the list are ones that would naturally be included in the game (including “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen), the majority of the list is merely “wishful thinking.”

OK, so, we know some of the titles are actually in the game. Which ones are you thinking?

Game Informer

It’s unfortunate that Activision is no longer a part of the ESA - it resulted in us not being able to try out any of their games. It’s a good thing that their press conference did a great job of presenting some of their upcoming titles, including Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. The game looked great from my vantage point, and while it wasn’t as impressive as some of the other titles shown, it looked like a Spider-Man game I could consider buying.

Still… no hands-on coming from me anytime soon.

It’ll be a battle of the bands this fall when Rock Revolution, Rock Band 2, and Guitar Hero: World Tour all become available. The cautious would be likely to say it’s still to early to tell which one will succeed, but the majority are already calling it an uphill battle for World Tour.

You can decide for yourself with the trailer above, with commentary by Brian Bright, who demonstrated the game and instruments on Tuesday night in a church. Come up with your own early prognosis as to how the game will fare.

Probably the game that surprised me the most at Activision’s Press Conference was Quantum of Solace, based on the upcoming James Bond film of the same title. I haven’t really been into Bond games for about a decade, and haven’t really enjoyed one in just about as long. Of the titles demonstrated at Activision’s press conference, this was the most impressive by far.

Unfortunately, I don’t have footage of that demonstration, showing off the game’s technical details, integration of creative and new camera systems, and ability to remain true to the James Bond license. The third trailer from that evening is shown above for you to enjoy.

Here you go, yet another game trailer from Activision’s Press Conference. This one’s for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Fusion, coming soon to all major consoles. It’s got all the heroes mentioned in the “live” blog from the other night, and then some. Let me know what you think!

Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War trailer is actually the same on that was released a few weeks ago, but here it is again straight from the press kit. Enjoy!

NOTICE: Sorry everyone! I had Wi-Fi access just before the Activision press conference, but it disconnected shortly before it all started, and I was never able to get back on. :( Here are the notes I took!

Alright! One more press conference for today, and then we’ll move on to uploading some hands-on impressions, screenshots, and trailers to the site. I’m sitting here at the Vibiana - alone :( - and the show is supposed to start at 7pm PDT, so be sure to check past the break for all the updates!

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