Answer: No. The DLC you'll get in Guitar Hero 5 is not usable in Guitar Hero: World Tour, according to Destructoid, and it's not a big surprise why. They're two different games.

An Activision rep told D'toid that "advancements and innovations" in Guitar Hero 5 make playing its DLC on previous versions a no-go. These features include vocal star power and and advanced drumming mode.

Bringing your existing DLC up to Guitar Hero 5 is possible through an export/import mechanism, but again, for a price, which Activision has not revealed. Also, it's applicable only to 152 of the 158 songs in the World Tour and Smash Hits catalog, and no one knows which songs are the blacklisted six.

Guitar Hero 5 DLC Won't be Compatible with Guitar Hero World [Destructoid]

Franchise compatible means no new band sets to replace your old ones and you can keep the music you've downloaded for World Tour as well. But there's more to Activision's plan than just a unified music system. Seriously — they brought Johnny Cash back from the dead both in the game and in the form of a live cover band at the event. And beyond that, they're already thinking about the future of the franchise well down the road from Guitar Hero 5.

Kinda looks like Cash doesn't like his cover band...

Bright wouldn't say too much about what lies ahead, but he did share some of the things his team at Neversoft has learned over the years. "We learned it's not always fun to play a four piece band," he said. "Sometimes people want to fight over the guitar, sometimes people don't want to play bass even though we added the open note. Some people just suck at drums and don't want to play it, it's intimidating. And we wanted to go green and there's a lot of guitars out there."

It's a lot like taiko drumming.

Bright also said he was excited about Project Natal and other motion-control-related E3 announcements. "We've done prototype motion controls with guitars in the past, with just the accelerometer," he said. "But you just don't get the refined data that you'd get when start throwing in things like they showed at E3. Just the single accelerometer — trying to put the guitar behind your head, the game just doesn't know. Would we be interested [in Natal]? Absolutely. I'm not saying that's what we're doing. But it's cool, it's exciting stuff. Even Wii MotionPlus... there's definitely avenues to be explored there."

The one thing Bright isn't looking forward to is the typical "Why isn't artist X in the game?" complaint most music games get. "Specifically Led Zeppelin," he added.

He also frowns on people who plan to write Guitar Hero 5 off as "not that different" from Guitar Hero: World Tour. "You have to play the game, you have to experience it. You will never want to go back to playing the old standard game. We take the stance at Neversoft that we're making video games. We're not music snobs, I mean we love music. But ultimately, we're making a video game that's fun to play and a way to experience music. Have fun, lighten up."

Guitar Hero 5 is out for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii September 1. Here, have some screens:

Sorry, should've warned you to take your shoes off, because your socks were probably just blown right through them. Oh, and did I mention that he plays the entire song with his elbow? Then you'll forgive Julian for only scoring a 77% completion and a note streak of 51. The guy is clearly preoccupied with things other than perfection. Plus he's playing off of the reflection of the TV in a mirror in order to capture this event on video.

If you begin to feel faint while witnessing the intensity that is Julian's "Multicolored Multitask," perhaps you should ease into this with a previous video in which he solves just one Rubik's Cube singlehandedly while playing the Smashing Pumpkins.

Thanks for the heads up, James!

Similar to the deal that GameStop ran a few weeks ago, the full band kit can be had for a song, a price "currently not available online." Looks like someone needs the space for the Fall flood of Guitar Hero 5 and The Beatles: Rock Band boxes. On top of that, we're told "roughly 200 price drops" went into effect today, meaning Spring's retail bombs can be Summer's low-risk purchases.

Found any deals? Let us know! And thanks to GameStop Manager X for the heads up.

Here's how this is going to work. We have two XL Stan Bush t-shirts and five signed copies of Stan's CD In This Life, which of course contains "The Touch". In order to win, you'll have to answer a series of five questions involving the original 1986 Transformers animated movie which the song first appeared in. The first three folks who deliver all five correct answers to KotakuContest[AT]gmail[DOT] com will be taking home a signed CD, while the first two who go the extra mile and provide the answer I am looking for to question five get a shirt as well.

And now, the questions!

1. In what year does Transformers the Movie take place?
2. In the original movie script, how was Ultra Magnus destroyed on the planet Junkion?
3. What is the Universal greeting?
4. Oooo, someone said a bad word. Who was it, and what was the word? No, dammit doesn't count.
5. Who killed Optimus Prime? There are two acceptable answers to this question, one more acceptable than the other.

Please note that the contest is only open to Kotaku readers in North America. Anyone giving away answers in the comments section will be banned and possibly set on fire.

UPDATE: All winners have been notified! Check your emails to see if you are getting a little somethin' somethin'.

For the record, the answers were:

1. 2005, or four years ago.
2. In the original script, as well as in the comic book adaptation, the Sweeps wrapped energy ropes around his arms and legs and torn him apart. In the movie, they cut that part, simply blasting him to pieces. We accepted torn limb from limb, but not simply "killed by".
3. Bah Weep Grahna Weep Ninny Bong, or some spelling of that.
4. Spike, not Bumblebee, shouted "Oh shit!" While early VHS versions of the movie cut this scene out, later added it back, with the 25th Anniversary edition actually having a chapter named after the line.
5. Megatron may have killed him damage-wise, but everybody knows that little jerkoff Hot Rod was the only reason Megs got the upper hand.

That's today!

While I'd have preferred Lion's rendition of the 1986 film's theme, or even NRG's Instruments of Destruction, I know not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Esepcially when, knowing Activision, we could easily have gotten this version of the song instead.

Not that Guitar Hero World Tour isn't a fine game, and out of the four nominees it could certainly be argued from a certain perspective that it was the best. When the nominees are Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, Mario Kart Wii, and Mario Super Sluggers, it's probably best to just close your eyes and hit a button.

The final group of four games to be considered for the coveted Favorite Video Game award were determined by Nickelodeon viewer survey, more than likely limited to T for Teen rated games and below, which would explain the lack of games more deserving of the title. I cannot imagine how many children were disappointed by the lack of Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Gears of War 2, and Fable II on the ballot.

With such limitations put on their choices, how does choosing Guitar Hero World Tour prove that children shouldn't be allowed to vote? It doesn't. Choosing Jesse McCartney over T-Pain in the Favorite Male Sing category does. Come on kids, he's on a boat!

2009 Kids' Choice Award Winners [Nickelodeon]

Aspyr (who brought Guitar Hero III to the PC/Mac) will be handling the port, which will feature all the on-disc songs from the console versions, as well as the song creator. What it won't feature, however, is the Guitar Hero marketplace you can find on the console versions, where people can trade user-created content.

As for downloadable content, that's a big "maybe" at this point, Aspyr unable to confirm or deny that PC gamers will be able to buy content post-purchase.

The PC/Mac version will ship with a single guitar controller. If you want more controllers, it's compatible with the PS3 instruments, which you can buy separately easily enough.

It'll be out in June.

On April 2, there'll be three Pixies songs made available: Debaser, Monkey Gone To Heaven & The Sad Punk. April 9 sees the release of three tracks by the Silversun Pickups, those being Panic Switch, It's Nice to Know You Work Alone & Well Thought Out Twinkles.

On April 16, Steely Dan's Black Friday, Kid Charlemagne and Bodhisattva will be released, while on April 23, you can get Jailbait, Love Me Like a Reptile and Iron Fist by Motörhead.

Rounding out the month will be a Nirvana track pack on April 30, including Very Ape, Sappy & Stay Away.

For those of you that have never played Guitar Hero III Mobile, Guitar Hero III: Backstage Pass Mobile or Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile, it might come as a shock that you can play the game without a plastic guitar (or plastic drums). Developer Hands-On got their heads around that early on in GHIII's development and were able to keep it sexy by dropping the fret count from five to three. They also were able to hang on to original song content and score master tracks by approaching music rights holders on their own, instead of waiting around for Activision to do it.

"Most of the R&D went into making the audio sound as good as possible," said Lechleiter. They got around the challenges of only having a single audio channel on most cell phones by having a third party develop an audio mixer that could supply four channels for separate sounds (guitar, drums, crowd noises, etc.), and by focusing on all the different audio types that mobile phones support (MP3, AMR, AAC, MIDI, etc.).

"Everyone wants MPS3 quality," he said. "MIDI I think is acceptable as a lowest common denominator – but that's what people are looking for, the true experience"

The game's quality isn't just about sound, though. By introducing head-to-head multiplayer that works across all different kinds of cell phone, World Tour is like a breakthrough for mobile gaming. Players can either do drums or guitar and the server does the rest in terms of matchmaking and providing four common songs between competitors. Hands-On provides a website where people can look at their stats and the stats of competitors, and the developer makes a habit of releasing one new song a month for free.

This puts their three mobile titles at something like 4 million purchases with other over 250,000 songs downloaded a day, says Lechleiter.

I think World Tour is an example of a mobile developer being aware of a platform's limits instead of blithely assuming quality doesn't matter. Hopefully, other developers will follow their lead.

"We're kind of in the infancy of music games right now," Lechleiter said. "I'm happy with [World Tour] and I'm excited to see what people can do [in the future]."

Confirming what was reported on Transformers fan site Seibertron.com Monday, Stan Bush passes along his thanks for all of your efforts to get his classic song into Guitar Hero.

Thanks so much for all your support! Because of the overwhelming enthusiasm from fans like you, "The Touch" will soon be available for Guitar Hero! Activision will be offering it as a free download. We did it!

We did it indeed! I was off doing some last-minute moving stuff when the initial announcement was first posted, so I missed out on the initial celebration of the end of our long struggle, but I'm at my best when the going gets tough. I mean, I've been put to the test and it's never enough.

Check out Stan's full message below, and give yourselves a nice pat on the back.

Dear Kotaku fans,

Thanks so much for all your support! Because of the overwhelming enthusiasm from fans like you, "The Touch" will soon be available for Guitar Hero! Activision will be offering it as a free download. We did it!

All the best!

Stan Bush

Today and today only, Amazon has discounted Guitar Hero World Tour across all platforms as part of their video game Deal of the Day program, with generous discounts across all four versions of the complete band kit. The Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 versions have all been dropped 37% to $119.98, while the PlayStation 2 version comes in at $10 cheaper, which for those of you with an aversion to simple maths is $109.98.

They've only got a limited amount for each platform, so if you feel so inclined, now would be a great time to catch up on your fake musical instrument collection, while helping Amazon free up massive amounts of warehouse space at the same time.

Amazon.com Video Games Deal of the Day [Amazon.com - Thanks Taylor!]

And Gamasutra have the answer. Charting sales of all three versions of Guitar Hero: World Tour, they've found that, surprisingly (considering these bleak economic times Americans are trudging through), more people bought the full band kit than bought any other version. Oh, and that only 24% of people bought the standalone version of the game, which suggests most buyers of World Tour were either new to the series, or at least in need of a new plastic axe.

Analysis: Which Guitar Hero Package Do People Buy? [Gamasutra]

Chicago punk band Rise Against is no stranger to Guitar Hero, with "Prayer of the Refuge" and "Re-Education (Through Labor)" appearing in previous versions of the game. Now they're back with a whole new track, "Death Blossoms", joining "Audience of One" from their latest album and "Ready to Fall: from The Sufferer & The Witness in the Rise Against Track Pack. The pack will be available on March 12th for 440 Microsoft points ($5.49), with the individual tunes going for 160 points ($1.99).

To celebrate the release, lead vocalist Tim McIlrath will be on Xbox Live from 7 to 9pm GMT to play the band's tunes with fans. Add GHRiseAgainst1 to your Xbox 360 friends list if that's the sort of thing you see yourself doing.

The month's downloadable songs kick off this Thursday with the third European track pack, with Italy, Finland, and France represented by Vanilla Sky, The Rasmus, and Les Rita Mitsouko respectively. On March 19th the European invasion continues with Dutch symphonic rock band Within Temptation, German punk band Die Toten Hosen, and Spanish rock from M-Clan.

The second Jimi Hendrix Track Pack also drops on the 19th, with "Freedom", "Angel", and a recording of the classic "Foxey Lady" from 1969's Woodstock festival, all complimenting Hendrix's appearance as a playable character in the game.

The month ends on a seriously high note, with three songs from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Queen. The classic "We Are The Champions" and "C-Lebrity" from their 2008 album make up two thirds of the pack, but they could have simply released the third track - "Fat Bottomed Girls" - and I would have gladly payed full price.

Backing up Queen on March 26th will be a new original recording of the classic James Bond theme, which World Tour singers should have a complete blast with, making up their own lyrics.
Check out the full listing of tracks by date below!

March 5th
Rasmus - In the Shadows
Vanilla Sky - Break It Out
Les Rita Mitsouko - C'est Comme Ça

March 19th
Within Temptation - What Have You Done
Die Toten Hosen - Her Kommt Alex
M-Clan - Carolina
Hendrix Track Pack 2

March 26th
Queen Track Pack
James Bond Theme

While the quite lengthy press release goes into all kinds of details we already knew about the drum, the guitar and the songs you can use to play them with, it doesn't actually list a price.

Fortunately GameStop, which has the correct date, does.

According to the online retailer the Wireless Drum kit will sell for $100, while the guitar will sell for $70.

Mike Griffith, president and CEO of Activision Publishing, announced the Greatest Hits repackaging during today's quarterly earnings call, a collection it plans to ship this year for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii.

Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits will feature favorites from previous entries — Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, etc. — updated for full band play, which Activision introduced with World Tour. While to you that may mean playing "Through the Fire and the Flames" on drums, to me it means percussion duties on A Flock of Seagulls "I Ran."

Further details weren't provided, but we're sure that Activision's taking requests.

According to the New York Daily News, Activision has no plans to stop running the ads amid controversy over two of its stars' drug problems. I guess we should point out that Phelps' drug "problem" is alleged, since the dude hasn't officially said he was smoking pot. It could've been dried banana peels, after all.

As the Daily News points out, the singer in the Guitar Hero World Tour jock band, Kobe Bryant, was also accused of sexual assault back in 2003. While Bryant's accuser never testified in that trial, she eventually settled, an affair that put a tinge of controversy on the NBA player.

Activision does say that the Guitar Hero World Tour ads that spoof Risky Business are coming to their end anyway.

Good timing, since somebody's bound to find out about Tony Hawk's collection of 8-year old girl skeletons he keeps in his basement.

Two Guitar Heroes are with banned [NY Daily News]

First, the Best Buy tale, because once you hear this SKRU-ed up SKU promotion, you may want to see if it's going on at your local big blue box. Ed says (this was emailed late Saturday):

So I walk into a local Best Buy today and spot sale tag in the Xbox 360 aisle advertising Guitar Hero: World Tour for $59.99 ... no big deal. I take a closer look and read "Save $20 Instantly" which confused me because that's the MSRP for the game. Upon further inspection I noticed it read "Band Kit" and "Reg. $189.99."

In other words, boys and girls, they stuck the right promotion on the wrong SKU. So, guess what happens next.

I thought "This is worth a shot" and dragged one of the band kits over to the register. The guy behind the counter laughed and said "Man, what a deal!" he called his supervisor over who scratched his head and input the SKU printed on the tag into the register. Sure enough, it was the same item only it rang up as $169.99 (this was the accurate sale price). He walked over to a manager with the sale tag and explained what happened. After about 5 minutes the manager walked over, said "How much? ... OK" and sold it to me for $59.99! He then said "Sorry for the wait, sir ... have a good night!"

That's right. When confronted with a difference in the printed, incorrect in-store promotion, and the correct price in the system, they gave him the cheaper one. With no chest-beating argument over obligations to honor an obviously incorrect price. I checked Best Buy's latest circular and I don't see any $20-off promotion for the GH:WT bundle. This may have been local to his store only. But who knows.

Update: Commenter willparry79 says:

As a Best Buy employee, I can confirm that we do this. If we messed up pricing a certain item, we'll give it to the customer for whatever price that it's advertised for, as long as we're pretty sure that we did it. If someone just moved the product to a cheaper price tag or something like that, we wouldn't do it, and we won't continue to sell the item at that price, but I'll change at least one or two items' price for that reason almost every day I work.

Good to know, and thanks Will.

Now, where were we? Oh right, gamecakes. Ed also just got hitched to Ursula, his girlfriend of seven years, and for the groom's cake she had the designer create that Rock Band drum kit cake you see above. Mmm, tasty. And the topper - literally - Ursula contacted Tristan Eaton, one of the co-creators of the Kidrobot Munny toy, and he designed these custom Munny cake toppers.

So, congratulations Ed and Ursula. Now in addition to finding space for all your wedding gifts, you have to house a second set of instruments. Be sure to write Best Buy a thank you note eight months from now. (That's OK, I always give wedding gifts 11 months after the fact.)

One of those titles, Guitar Hero World Tour, will get the NASCAR treatment courtesy of Aric Almirola #8 Chevy, which is expected to move at high speeds in an elliptical pattern for approximately 500 miles. The Daytona 500 runs on February 15th to the delight of race fans who like seeing these move fast and in a row.

Driver Almirola said, convincingly, "I was excited about running my first Daytona 500 to begin with, but now having the Guitar Hero brands on my car will make it even that much more fun. I can't think of another brand that I would rather have on my car. I play the Guitar Hero games all the time and to now be representing it is very cool."

Martin Truex Jr will also rep for Activision's guitar game while trying not to crash in future races.

As for those "upcoming Guitar Hero titles"? We'll guess one of them might be Guitar Hero Metallica, considering Activision sponsored a car previously to shill last year's Guitar Hero Aerosmith. But we won't be surprised when news of the next dozen spin-offs hits, then gets plastered on someone's car.

Activision teams with EGR to sponsor #8 and #1 [Jayski's Silly Season Site - thanks, Kris!]