“We are thrilled to enter into this agreement with Nintendo,” said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. “Together we will provide Rock Band fans the opportunity to enhance their gameplay with Mad Catz’ premium instruments for Nintendo’s extremely popular Wii system.”

Incidentally, the agreement covers the entire known world except for Asia, so if you live in Asia and got all excited just now I am terribly sorry.

Mad Catz Enters into Multi-Year License Agreement with Nintendo for Wii Rock Band™ Peripherals

SAN DIEGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (AMEX/TSX: MCZ), a leading third-party interactive entertainment accessory provider, announced today that it has entered into a multi-year licensing agreement with Nintendo of America Inc. whereby Mad Catz has secured the rights to produce and distribute peripherals for the critically acclaimed Rock Band™ video game for the Wii™ system.

The agreement provides Mad Catz these rights worldwide, outside of Asia. The products to be produced under the agreement are a bass guitar and a portable drum percussion set. Mad Catz expects these products to be available early in 2009.

“We are thrilled to enter into this agreement with Nintendo,” said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. “Together we will provide Rock Band fans the opportunity to enhance their gameplay with Mad Catz’ premium instruments for Nintendo’s extremely popular Wii system.”

The Rock Band series of video games, published by MTV Games and developed by MTV Network’s Harmonix Music Systems, allows music fans and gamers to interact with music, challenging users to master the lead/bass guitar, drums and vocals as solo artists or cooperatively as part of their own band. Built on deals with the world’s biggest record labels and music publishers, the music featured in the Rock Band games span all genres of rock and includes many master recordings from the greatest songs and artists of all time. Rock Band for Wii is currently available in North America and in Europe.

To interface with your drum kit, however, you will need a midi to USB cable, which you most likely don't have. RedOctane provides a link in their support center article where you can submit a ticket for information on how to receive said cable. Not quite as good as having all peripherals work out of the box, but at least they're trying.

Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Tuning Kit [RedOctane - Thanks Nick!]

We have learned that certain drum kit controllers manufactured for Guitar Hero World Tour have sensitivity issues. We believe that these controllers are limited to ones in the earlier manufacturing stages. While we believe that this was an isolated manufacturing issue, we are stepping our efforts to randomly test our drum kit controllers so customers can be assured they work properly. In the event any consumers do experience problems with their drum kit controllers associated with sensitivity issues, Activision will soon be offering a drum tuning kit that will enable players to fully optimize their drums.

That was part of an official statement from Activision, posted on Red Octane's customer support site. The statement then goes on to instruct players on what to do should their instruments be faulty or missing.

Our goal would be to immediately address any hardware issues Guitar Hero World Tour players have with the game. Consumers should visit the Activision Publishing customer support website at www.activision.com/support website or call 310 255-2050 in the U.S. where a customer care representative will assist them. Activision is fully committed to the highest quality manufacturing standards, and to satisfying every Guitar Hero World Tour fan so they can enjoy the best musical gaming experience ever created.

Good luck with that!

Rock Band takes this to new levels of lounge clutter - the drum kit in particular is a real carpet-hog, It's even worse if you have to lug it across town to your bandmates' place.

Purveyors of kerwality peripherals Mad Catz have a possible solution - this portable Drum Kit is basically just the 'skins' from the drum pads that you can lay on any surface you like. It's not going to feel as satisfying as thwacking the real thing, but with the included drum pedal and 'noise-reduction' sticks you might avoid another tidying up argument for a mere $59.

Portable Rock Band drum kit rids your living room of clutter [Dvice via ChipChick via SlipperyBrick]

The First Shot of the Drum Kit that will be used in GH 4 [Destructoid Blogs via Ars Technica - Thanks Matt!]

[Thanks to Blake for the photo]

...right after I finish this post. Are you interested in quieting your Rock Band drums and rocking out some airbrushed flaming skulls at the same time? Good! Because such a life is now available on eBay. While not the sexiest modification we've ever seen, these peel-off replacement heads feature that touch of homemade that will make you look like a real starving artist who hasn't understood the world since the 80s. Hit the jump for a bonus picture, this time with even more skull goodness.

Rock Band Drums Skulls [eBay] Thanks Steve!

Now a new company is selling Drumshhh pads specifically for Rock Band drums. Self-adhesive tops comprised of the same foam/felt concoction we've seen others test, Drumshhh pads are ready to stick on your drums out of the box and claim to reduce ambient drum noise by 50%. Plus, they come in four different styles for those looking to sexify their peripherals a bit. We're not sure about what the price will be at this time, but if it's under $10, we'd give it a try.

Drumshhh [via ironicgamer]

By applying one layer of self-adhesive rubber and another of self-adhesive, colored felt, they claim to maintain full responsiveness while cutting down on the kit sound by 70%—by highly scientific measurement, we're sure. For those who prefer to drum silent ninja style, it's a cheap and easy mod that makes your drum kit look a lot like a Twister board. And if the drums break, at least you have that.

Time for Rock Band Arts & Crafts [generationgamerz] Thanks Al!

We're torn. It's great that the Rock Band drums disassemble. But all of that telescoping had us hoping for a simple one or two step maneuver to rock the peripheral from stored form to final form. Instead, we're left with a pile of parts, some agglomeration of rejected camping equipment. Though, to be fair, Totilo assembles the kit in less than a minute. Thoughts?

How To Assemble The "Rock Band" Drum Kit [MTV Multiplayer]

Homespun versions of Tetris music have to be right up there with the Mario song, but I still love these two. They are both sorta crap in an endearing way. I think the drums pull the garage band version ahead by an unwashed hair. Brian Crecente