This video sets an interesting theory in motion. Imagine, if the Rock Band and Guitar Hero titles of the future don’t require a TV or even gaming console. Instead, those repetitive colored lines of notes we all know by heart will stream down from the heavens right above our real instruments, by using holographic images.

Check out the video above and see for yourself. While it may not be reality just yet, it’s always fun to ponder what the future will look like. You know, aside from hoverboards and self-lacing Nikes.

YouTube

Related Posts

• E3 2009: The Beatles: Rock Band DLC incompatible with other Rock Band titles
• Queen will ROCK YOU on Lego Rock Band
• Behold the Rock Band 2 Fender Strat

*sob* Why? When will it end? For the love of God! Make it stop! Guitar Hero 6 and DJ Hero 2 have been officially confirmed by Activision in an earnings call released today. Both are promised to have a “full range of downloadable” content (though with all the titles released thus far, I’m thinking they’ll have to go all the way back to Bach). We’ll update you here as more information is made available, but I think we all know the drill. Fall release, weekly downloads, blah blah blah. Can’t wait.

Joystiq

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero DS bundle and Guitar Hero IV confirmed by Activision
• 
  More Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock details
• 
  22 more tracks confirmed for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

This might be just a Minor Thing (rumors are mere rumors, after all), but an Activision survey indicates they may be looking to bring Red Hot Chili Peppers to their line of Guitar Hero games. The survey, which was forwarded to Kotaku, reads in part:

“Celebrate the entirety of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ life, starting with their early days in LA, to their famous Hyde Park concert to their highly anticipated new studio album. Discover the story behind their legendary music as you unlock interviews, retrospectives, concert footage and other commentary.”

The survey goes on to specifically mention By The Way, Californication, Give It Away and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “upcoming studio album to be released in 2011.”

As much as I’m a huge RHCP fan, I probably wouldn’t buy this even if they Give It Away. But I think a Red Hot Chili Peppers version of Guitar Hero could well. And if it inspires legions of fans to take pictures of themselves playing GH in nothing but a sock, well, it will have been worth it in the end.

Kotaku

Related Posts

• 7 new songs added to the Guitar Hero III set list
• Guitar Hero 3: New songs, hammer-ons, and other tidbits
• RUMOR: Activision to bring drum and mic peripherals to Guitar Hero?

In Duh News Of The Day, Activision has confirmed that their future plans include new installments in their blockbuster franchises Guitar Hero, Spider Man, and Call of Duty.  From a “3rd quarter financial call”:

“In 2010, Activision publishing is expected to release a strong product line of innovative new titles,” said Activision chief financial officer Thomas Tipple. “The diversified lineup will include, among others, titles based on the best-selling franchises in the company’s history, including Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Shrek, and Spiderman, and a select few new intellectual properties such as Blur and Singularity, and a strong catalog based on our top sellers of 2009.”

Ugh I hate the use of the phrase “intellectual properties”. It basically means “here’s something else we’re going to try to milk for all its worth, no matter how ridiculous or desperate it appears to be”. I also find it hilarious that they used the world “diversified” in the same breathe as mentioning all the franchises they will continue to squeeze every last drop out of. More of the same? Yup, that’s diverse!

Still though, the world can never have enough Call of Duty, am I right?

IGN

Related Posts

• 
  Activision registers Call of Duty: Secret Warfare, and other names
• 
  Activision makes Call of Duty: Black Ops zombie mode official
• Call of Duty franchise reaches 3 billion in sales

Take that, Project Natal!

This ambitious project was created by ripping the sensors out of old Guitar Hero controllers, then attaching them to images projected on a warehouse wall, which as you can see they then lob soccer balls at to create a larger than life version game can only refer to as Soccer Hero.

While they achieve “only” 76% accuracy, I figure that’s still better than what I can do at regular Guitar Hero. Or soccer. Or anything without a quick save button, now that I think of it.

Gizmodo

Related Posts

• Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 headed to the Wii
• 
  Ubisoft’s Pure Futbol soccer game now available
• Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 Wii screens

The Wii being used for physical rehabilitation is kind of an old idea, but I think this is the first time we’ve heard of Guitar Hero being used to help amputees get used to their new arms limbs.

Rehabilitation specialists have taken to Nintendo’s Wii game console as a way to help motivate patients during physical therapy and rehabilitation. The latest addition to the Wii-hab phenomenon is perhaps its coolest—Air Guitar Hero. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have made the popular Guitar Hero game into a tool for amputees who are being fitted with the next generation of artificial arms. With a few electrodes and some very powerful algorithms, amputees can hit all the notes of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” using only the electrical signals from their residual muscles. 

While it’s always cool to hear about video games helping people in interesting ways like this one, I’m more impressed with the fact that a prosthetic arm can play Guitar Hero at all. That’s amazing. To paraphrase Three Panel Soul, it is unquestionably the future and you would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway.

IEEE Spectrum
via GoNintendo

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero rocks faces, tops charts
• Guitar Hero DS bundle and Guitar Hero IV confirmed by Activision
• Activision announces new Guitar Hero games, Band Hero, DJ Hero

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

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero DS bundle and Guitar Hero IV confirmed by Activision
• More DS Guitar Hero on the way?
• Guitar Hero III is the first game ever to generate one billion dollars in sales

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

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 learn to play nice
• E3 2009: The Beatles: Rock Band DLC incompatible with other Rock Band titles
• Original Guitar Hero developer open to Rock Band on Wii

See that? That’s 16-year-old Blake Peebles. He left school last September to concentrate on playing more Guitar Hero, and his parents let him.

The difference here? Blake is one of the best players in the country. His shyness and dislike for the rules at the Christian high school where his brother attends didn’t really click with him, so Blake’s parents arranged for home schooling, much in the same way child actors and athletes are raised. This leaves him time to practice Guitar Hero into the early morning hours each day, compete in tournaments, and play… professionally. He’s won $1,000 in prizes so far, and he’ll be heading to Regionals in California for the World Cyber Games. He’ll be eyeing Nationals, and the right to represent the US in the World Tournament in Germany.

Anyone else feel confident enough in their gaming to quit school? I bet the whole lot of you do.

The News Observer
via Destructoid

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 learn to play nice
• Guitar Hero DS bundle and Guitar Hero IV confirmed by Activision
• Guitar Hero III online play?

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.

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 learn to play nice
• Possible Leak: Guitar Hero World Tour setlist
• Count Mii in for Guitar Hero: World Tour

In a move that has Activision’s strategy marked all over it, Guitar Hero On Tour Decades was announced for the DS. Little is known of the title, hopefully our Tanooki counterparts in LA can help us out soon, but we do know that a song sharing feature will allow, you guessed it, song-sharing between both the first DS Guitar Hero, and the newly announced version.

With the DS’ hardware restrictions, this basically means that you’ll be able to send a song to a friend to play on his/her version until they turn off their DS, just like a downloadable demo. Still, doesn’t this seem a bit soon? What are your thoughts? Buyable, or forgettable?

Kotaku

Related Posts

• Activision announces new Guitar Hero games, Band Hero, DJ Hero
• Guitar Hero DS bundle and Guitar Hero IV confirmed by Activision
• Best Buy reconfirms: Guitar Hero III for Wii is $89.99

The rock band Dragonforce has become pretty well known to gamers since Through the Fire and the Flames appeared as the final song in Guitar Hero III. The Tanooki’s own Matthew Dominick had one particularly epic, yet well-documented run in with this song not too long ago.

While many gamers have enjoyed their insanely difficult addition to the Guitar Hero library, the actual band members seem to be gamers themselves as the group opened a concert in California today with the theme from Donkey Kong Country. Ryan, one of our Tanooki staff writers was present at the concert, and was treated to a first hand experience of this surprise music selection. This bit of news makes me wonder if the band has ever played their own song on Guitar Hero, and if they enjoyed it as much as Matt did. Hmmm….

Related Posts

• …And Justice For All- Metallica’s “One” in Guitar Hero III
• Harmonix and the Beatles planning to Come Together for a music game
• More DS Guitar Hero on the way?

Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page has turned down offers from both MTV and Activision for access to the band’s master recordings. He’s basically not comfortable granting that access to outsiders. According to Page’s manager:

It ain’t about the money.

No Zeppelin this time around. Maybe in the distant future.

Wall Street Journal
via Wired

Related Posts

• E3 2008 – Guitar Hero: World Tour trailer
• All 84 bands in Guitar Hero 5 revealed
• Ride the Lightning… as Metallica in the next Guitar Hero

Regardless of what all the “nay-sayers” say about Guitar Hero, Activision has a golden goose in it’s hands.  It seems that anything related to the Guitar Hero franchise is an instant hit, and Guitar Hero: On Tour is no exception:

Activision, Inc.  today announced Guitar Hero: On Tour has sold in excess of 300,000 units in North America in the first seven days since its launch, making it the largest North American launch for the Nintendo DS in the company’s history by more than a factor of eight. In addition, Guitar Hero: On Tour’s performance ranks it as one of Activision’s top 5 best-selling launches of any title on any platform in the company’s history.

See the full press release after the break.

Activision’s Largest Nintendo DS(TM) Launch

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jul 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced Guitar Hero(R): On Tour has sold in excess of 300,000 units in North America in the first seven days since its launch, making it the largest North American launch for the Nintendo DS(TM) in the company’s history by more than a factor of eight. In addition, Guitar Hero: On Tour’s performance ranks it as one of Activision’s top 5 best-selling launches of any title on any platform in the company’s history.

Guitar Hero: On Tour brings the popular Guitar Hero franchise to the handheld platforms for the first time delivering a unique gaming experience and challenging handheld gamers to prove their skills on the most diverse set list of master tracks ever offered in a Guitar Hero game.

“Guitar Hero is one of the most successful entertainment properties and continues to push the boundaries of innovation with Guitar Hero: On Tour,” said Mike Griffith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Activision Publishing, Inc. “The game’s breakthrough peripheral brings the Guitar Hero experience to the 41 million DS users in North America and Europe, where they can play anywhere, anytime.”

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.

Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activision.com.

Activision

Related Posts

• Guitar Hero rocks faces, tops charts
• 15 Guitar Hero: On Tour tracks revealed
• Guitar Hero: On Tour priced and dated?