Videogames are often put at odds with certain forms of productivity, such as learning a musical instrument. But performance simulators such as Guitar Hero have proven to be an entryway into real-world musicianship.

To help support a growing interest in guitar study, RedOctane and NAMM announced a partnership at the annual NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif. that will link Guitar Hero III to NAMM's "Wanna Play" campaign. This new facet of the public awareness campaign focuses on bridging the gap between virtual and real-life musicianship.
» Read More 

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey picks what he believes will be the biggest sellers of 2008.
» Read More 

Just weeks ago, it felt as if the stalemate between Activision and Harmonix would never end. Both companies blamed the other for the lack of compatibility between guitar peripherals for Rock Band and Guitar Hero III. Thankfully, Nyko has come to save the day as it recently announced that it would develop a guitar that's compatible with both games.
» Read More 

In 2008, the team at MTV Games are proud to present to you the MTV Rhythm Game Track Finder, your beacon in the confusing swirl of rhythm games.

The regularly updated database will allow you to search any artist and any song to find out which rhythm games it is in and to compare song lists for any major music-based video game.

The database currently indexes song lists for more than two dozen rhythm games, including a range of SingStars, Guitar Heroes, Dance Dance Revolutions, Rock Band, and lesser-known favorites such as FreQuency, Elite Beat Agents and the Donkey Konga series.
» Read More 

1UP has been closely following the ridiculous back-and-forth between Rock Band and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock in achieving true cross-compatibility between the peripherals released for each. Unfortunately, the recent introduction of lawyers into the mix means gamers may not see an easy solution anytime soon, but at CES 2008, Nyko unveiled their own brand of solution that could make life easier for rockers on PlayStation 3.
» Read More 

Orlando Sentinel "Control Freak" blogger Mark Reule has an opinion about the next installment of Guitar Hero.

He Writes

"After reading through February's EGM, I noticed a little tidbit about a rumored Guitar Hero sequel featuring a band that "rocks in mysterious ways". Give up?

Think 1991. Think Achtung Baby. It can only be U2."
» Read More 

Jan. 2, 2008 -- MSNBC tallied in their Game of the Year readers' votes between December 19 and 27. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" garnered 33 percent of the over 17,000 votes and is MSNBC Readers' Game of the Year. The runner-up was "Bioshock" at 22 percent of the votes. The second runner-up was "Mass Effect" at 10 percent.

Here are MSNBC readers' picks for the best in each genre:

¿ Best sports game: Madden NFL '08
¿ Best racing game: Project Gotham Racing 4
¿ Best casual game: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
¿ Best family game: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
¿ Best music game: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
¿ Best handheld game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
¿ Best role-playing game: Mass Effect
¿ Best action/adventure game: Bioshock
¿ Best shooter: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

View the full report for the runners-up in each category.
» Read More 

ActionTrip's 2007 Game of the Year voting poll registered 10673 participants. 1809 registered users voted for Call of Duty 4, 1279 for Halo 3, 1192 for Assassin's Creed, 837 for "None of the Above", 716 for BioShock, 710 for Crysis, 627 for The Orange Box, and so on. The rest of the results can be viewed in ActionTrip's voting poll section.

¿ People's Choice: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
¿ Runners-up: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

¿ Game of the Year (ActionTrip Staff): Portal
¿ Runners-up: Mass Effect, Halo 3, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher

¿ Best Action Game: Halo 3
¿ Runners-up: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, God of War II, BioShock, Crysis

¿ Best Strategy Game: World in Conflict
¿ Runners-up: Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

¿ Best RPG: Mass Effect
¿ Runners-up: The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

¿ Best Sports Game: FIFA 08
¿ Runners-up: SSX Blur, NHL 08, Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008

¿ Best MMOG: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
¿ Runners-up: Tabula Rasa, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

¿ Best Rhythm/Music Game: Rock Band
¿ Runners-up: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

¿ Babe of the Year: Joanna Krupa
» Read More 

MSNBC video game section has been polling gamers about their favorite games in a number of categories, trying to narrow down the search for the Game of the Year.

On Thursday the site put up the poll to decide which of the finalists, culled from the best of each genre, should be named the game of the year.

The finalists are:
¿ Madden NFL 08
¿ Project Gotham Racing 4
¿ Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
¿ LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
¿ Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
¿ The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
¿ Mass Effect
¿ Bioshock
¿ Call of Duty 4

At the time of this writing Call of Duty 4 was leading with 31 percent of the vote. BioShock was close behind with 22 percent and Mass Effect was in a distant third with 8.6 percent.

[ Words: Kotaku's Brian Crecente ]
» Read More 

Dec. 18, 2007 - A PriceGrabber.com survey of 3,309 online shoppers conducted in early December reports that:

¿ The number of consumers interested in video games and consoles continues to rise, with 64 percent of respondents planning to purchase a gaming equipment in the next year.

¿ 71 percent of online shoppers plan to spend more than $50 on gaming.

¿ 55 percent favor consoles in the $100 to $300 range.

¿ Game selection is the most important attribute when choosing a gaming system.

¿ 31 percent favor the Nintendo Wii, saying it offers the best games.

¿ Non-violent games have gained in appeal, with 29 percent rating animated/child-friendly games as their preferred genre.
» Read More 

Latest American sales from VGcharts.

1 Wii Sports - Nintendo 325,483
2 Forza Motorsport 2 - Microsoft 208,037
3 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - Activision 201,476
4 Super Mario Galaxy - Nintendo 188,325
5 Mass Effect - Microsoft 113,856
6 Wii Play - Nintendo 112,724
7 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision 106,583
8 Assassins Creed - Ubisoft 102,501
9 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Activision 92,441
10 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Activision 81,408

DS 458,050
Wii 325,483
360 250,648
PS2 161,513
PSP 160,848
PS3 155,515
GBA 32,268
GC 2,545
» Read More 

This week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending December 3rd, highlight both to-be-released and already released games in a unique demand-specific chart.

This week's top five all-platform requests show little movement once again, after last week saw the list barely ruffled. Assassin's Creed still takes the top spot for a third week with Mass Effect in second for its second week in a row.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which spent the last two weeks at number four, slips a bit to the fourth spot to make room for Kane and Lynch: Dead Men to move up one spot into the fourth spot, but that's the only movement -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune stays at number five, where it entered last week.
» Read More 

Kotaku's Brian Crecente has a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow. This year's report card is broken into five parts:

¿ The MediaWise Video Game Report Card
¿ The Buying Guide
¿ The ESRB Rating System and Ratings Education Efforts
¿ The Retailer Ratings Education and Enforcement Surveys
¿ Annual MediaWise-Harris Interactive Poll of Kids and Parents

Kotaku gives a quick summary for each part.
» Read More 

Via CNet:

The immense popularity of the hit Guitar Hero franchise--the third iteration of the game, Guitar Hero III, brought in $115 million during its first week on the market--may be the best thing that has happened to the instrument, to rock 'n' roll, and to guitar instructors, in a long time.

"I have an overwhelming feeling that my business is safe for years to come when I see kids playing Guitar Hero," said Dan Emery, owner of New York City Guitar School. "These kids are really enjoying playing Guitar Hero, and they're really being turned on to old classic rock" via the game.
» Read More 

After injuring one of his fingers from playing too much Guitar Hero II, modder Egyokeo took it upon himself to rig up a MIDI drum kit to work with the game. If he wasn't going to be able to grip the fret his Xplorer until the aching digit fully healed, then he'd play guitar¿with the drums. Hit the jump for some videos of the final product.
» Read More 

USInfo reports on the growing popularity of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, particularly among musicians.
» Read More 

Xbox360 writes:

"Johnny Rotten's now infamous ranting at Guitar Hero III's launch party was captured on OXM's cameras and has now been uploaded on OXM.co.uk for all to see. After introducing himself by saying "[censored], it's rubbish, I hate the whole thing", the Sex Pistols singer then goes into the reason why he's there - to promote Guitar Hero III.

"I'll give it to you basic and honest," he says. "The offer came in and I took it home and I played it with a bunch of kids. What I like is it weren't teaching you how to be a rock star, it was teaching you how not to be a rock star..."

And that was the last thing said on the game, after explaining how the Sex Pistols re-recorded tracks (Anarchy In The UK and Pretty Vacant). For what followed was half-an-hour ranting about Tony Blair, screaming "I AM ENGLAND" and throwing microphone at journalists who he thought were "smug." Watch the whole video to see what we mean. And keep an eye on the swear counter too... ouch."
» Read More 

Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter estimates that Activision's key music franchise will total around 7.5 million units sold this year, but will decline a bit next year because of Rock Band.
» Read More 

Activision Inc has announced that it is raising its financial outlook for its fiscal third quarter, ending December 31, and for the financial year as a whole.

This is the result of better than expected revenues to date on its titles, which include Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

The statement released by the company revises the Q3 outlook up from USD 1.05 billion to USD 1.23 billion, with a diluted earnings per share moving from USD 0.51 to USD 0.66.
» Read More 

MTV Games has taken its first major step into the console game arena with the launch of "Rock Band," with company executives touting the title as the integration of music and gaming on a whole new level.

"Our belief is that 'Rock Band' is not just a game," said Jeff Yapp, executive vice president of program enterprises at MTV Networks Music Group. "It's a new platform for which to engage with music, and that's what we're most excited about."

"We're pretty optimistic about what this game is going to do," Jeff Yapp said. "But our next big announcement, which is coming up fairly quickly, is a move to a whole other realm."
» Read More