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Around 26 months ago, Guitar Hero was an instant cult classic. Today, it's officially a $1 billion franchise. Apparently this milestone comes in video game record time (not partially fueled by the ease with which developers can churn out new versions of the game). In addition, since the launch of Guitar Hero III, users have downloaded five million songs (we're guessing they mean just for GHIII, but the press release is a bit unclear). If so, that total is double the figure that Rock Band has released (granted, GHIII has been out longer). More »
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The story doesn't seem like a big deal: RedOctane partners with NAMM (the giant International Music Products Association) to promote music awareness and creation in the "Wanna Play?" campaign. Big whoop, right? But when you realize that RedOctane is NAMM's first ever video game industry partner, the story's significance shifts a bit. In partnering for cross promotional events and kiosks, not only is NAMM acknowledging RedOctane's ability to recruit youngsters to play music (and buy real instruments), they are also publicly acknowledging RedOctane's (and Guitar Hero's) legitimate seat at the giant table that is the musical world. It's like they're holding hands in public or something and NAMM is totally cool with it. More »
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Red Octane is getting into the Black Friday Madness with some pretty decent savings on Guitar Hero III bundles. Grab the Guitar Hero X-plorer Ultimate Bundle for Xbox 360, one guitar and Guitar Hero II and III for $140, or about $40 in savings. Unfortunately, your basic kits didn't get any cheaper. But we listed all the deals after the jump, so take your pick—pun definitely intended. More »
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Apparently some Guitar Hero III bundles are missing the game. As reported by our sister site The Consumerist, an EB Games employee looked on as his manager opened every Xbox 360 GH3 bundle box they had following a customer complaint, finding that none of them had the game inside. More »
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Michael "Mad Hoodie" Pachter is calling it again. This time, he's predicting the NPD to announce that software sales have increased 50% from October of last year. In hard numbers that means he's calling October 2007 to have $555 million ins sales, up from $369 million October 2006. The even better news is that most of this $555 million would be new money, with $425 million of it from 360, PS3, Wii, PSP and the DS. But the juiced-up numbers will mostly be attributed to one game...place your bets now... More »
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The consumer is officially prepared for the Wii graphics letdown, and if a you buy a game on the Wii that's uglier than the PS3/360 version, you wouldn't be surprised. But when Guitar Hero III is found to only play mono sound on the Wii (as opposed to the box-advertised stereo and Dolby Pro Logic II options), heads turn. According to one affected forum member on the Guitar Hero site, Activision is "looking into it right now," and the implication is that some horrible software problem is preventing users from playing a music game in its full spectrum—not that the Wii is incapable of the task. More »
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One good soul playing close attention to the leaderboards has noticed a few songs that aren't in the standard Guitar Hero III track list. So what's this mean? DLC for everyone*!! Specifically, users have spotted three more songs from both the Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. But the biggest surprise may be that boss battle tracks are listed as well, so it will be interesting to see how the content is dealt with from a purchaser's standpoint. Hit the jump for a complete list. More »
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A war is brewing. Just as Man fights over the superiority of various football teams, cars, female hair colors and brand of fiber supplement, so too will Man fight over whether Guitar Hero is a better series than Rock Band. More »
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We're not sure how this news slipped by us, but we wanted to let potential PS2 Guitar Hero III buyers know about yet another exclusive GHIII bundle on the market. While Wal-mart may be offering GHIII with a wired controller, Target is offering a Dueling Axe Pack version packaged with not one but two SG controllers for $110 (or $100 this week). While the guitars are wired, tethering you to your PS2 like a rocker on a heroin drip, it's not a bad deal if you haven't owned a Guitar Hero game before and wanted the option to play with a buddy. Yes, we did just say heroin and buddy within the same breath. More »
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Looks like that leaked Guitar Hero III track list from a couple weeks back might be closer to reality than we thought. While the new press release from Activision doesn't reveal specific song tiers, it does add seventeen new songs, all of which were included on the rumored list. Still the leaked list has seventy songs, while I am only counting fifty-nine in the press release, so I'll leave it to you junior detectives to work out the discrepancies. Seven of the new songs are master tracks from the original artists, including Sonic Youth's 'Cool Thing', Aerosmith's 'Same Old Song and Dance", and The Killers' 'When You Were Young', which will be stuck in my head the rest of the day. Covers include White Zombie's 'Black Sunshine' and 'Devil Went Down To Georgia' made famous by the Charlie Daniels Band. Living in the south, I can tell you right now that if the Devil cover sucks the folks at Activision better start keeping an eye out for suspicious looking pickup trucks in their vicinity. You don't screw around with a song so important that it's projected onto a mountain with lasers every weekend. Hit the jump for the full list, new and old. More »
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