Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock lets fans thrash and burn with new wireless guitar controllers available for each platform, including exclusive Gibson Guitar's Les Paul model for the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3. PlayStation2 gamers will also get to shred on an exclusive shape, Gibson's Kramer guitar, popularized by hard rockers and known for its body design, pickups, electronics and construction for furious finger fretting.

Activision, Inc. today announced that standalone wireless guitar controllers will be available at retail stores nationwide by early 2008.
» Read More 

Nov 23, 2007 There was shouting, frayed tempers and a whole lot of hot consoles, but we pretty much pulled off the impossible – an eight player Guitar Hero face-off across all console disciplines. Four monitors, four machines, a mixing desk (yep), a tangled Gorgons nest of wires and eight players. You dont want to try this at home. It took a little organisation and a bit of technical head-scratching, but, as you can see from this backstage footage, the biggest problem was getting ... » Read More

Rock band The Romantics have filed suit against Harmonix, RedOctane and Wavegroup Sound for the cover version of "What I Like About You", included in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, reports Billboard.
» Read More 

Activision, Inc. was the #1 U.S. console and handheld publisher for the month of October, increasing its U.S. market share to a record 28.7%, according to The NPD Group. The company's performance was driven by the success of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which was the #1 U.S. best-selling title across all platforms, despite only one week of sales during the month.
» Read More 

Guitar Hero may be a great game, but it doesn't help the ego if you are thrashing with a little plastic toy in your hands. For the music loving gamers who love their guitars, ArtGuitar and Peavey are making 17 limited edition PS2 Guitar Hero controllers - with fantastic artwork and housed in a real high-quality Peavey guitar.
» Read More 

The best selling games in units sold, across all platforms, for the year are as follows, with more year-to-date sales data available at the source.

¿ Halo 3 - 3,700,000
¿ Madden NFL 08 - 3,200,000
¿ Guitar Hero II - 2,800,00
¿ Wii Play with Remote - 2,500,000
¿ Pokemon Diamond - 2,100,000
¿ Pokemon Pearl - 1,500,000
¿ Spider-Man 3 - 1,400,000
¿ Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock - 1,400,000
» Read More 

Activision and video game advertising network Massive, a subsidiary of Microsoft, have announced that Activision titles Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground have been added to the Massive Network, allowing in-game advertising to be updated in real-time.

According to the companies, Massive ads served into Guitar Hero III will be "contextually relevant" to the rock venues in which players perform. As for Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, the ads will be "tailored to real-world skating environments," offering marketers visibility in each title's specific demographics.
» Read More 

Reports have been flying across the web claiming that Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii plays in mono sound only. If true, this could be a huge disaster for Activision and Nintendo. Guitar Hero III is supposed to support Dolby Pro Logic II quality sound.
» Read More 

The Guitar Hero franchise continues to produce for game publisher Activision, accumulating $100 million in North America since its launch on Oct. 28th.
» Read More 

The first downloadable content for Guitar Hero III has been revealed by a fan at the ScoreHero forums who accidentally made the discovery.

It looks like three downloadable content packages will be made available, in the same way downloadable content was handled for Guitar Hero II. Expect a Foo Fighters pack with All My Life, The Pretender and This Is A Call, a Velvet Revolver pack with Slither, She Builds Quick Machines and Messages and the final pack for the boss battle music. No word on pricing or when to expect these songs.
» Read More 

PSN@Home is having a Free to enter Give-away for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) with the guitar. All you have to do to enter is be a member of psnathome.com and you are automatically entered. Although if you have not been on the website for the past week and you are picked we will pick someone else.
» Read More 

Oct 31, 2007 The first details have been spilled on Rock Band and Guitar Hero creator Harmonix' next project, which will apparently leave the dedicated peripherals of its previous titles behind. The info comes from a Game Developers Conference 08 session listing for senior designer Chris Foster, in which he'll discuss the challenges of leaving the beat-matching formula of Guitar Hero behind. The new game, says the listing, will adopt a system where beats are not authored by tech-savvy ... » Read More

Oct 31, 2007 Harmonix and Red Octane once worked together to bring Guitar Hero to the world. But now Red Octane president Kai Huang believes that, while there's room for both its own Guitar Hero brand and Harmonix's new Rock Band, Rock Band's "complex" nature means it won't offer what the "mass market" wants. "With Guitar Hero, we want to make it as broadly appealing as possible, as market, as casual a game as possible," Huang explains. "With Rock Band [it's] slightly different." "[Rock ... » Read More

The Wii version of the new music title ranked as the No. 1 offering at Amazon's Computer & Video Games division, outranking the SKU for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 at No. 7 and Sony Corp.'s Playstation 3 at No. 40.

All three versions include new music tracks, a wireless guitar, and online play options.

EA next month will release a new competitor to the music game sector called Rock Band. Rock Band, which includes peripherals to form an entire virtual band, will only be sold for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and not the Wii.
» Read More 

Kotaku writes: "When I got the first email about this I thought perhaps it was some shipping mistake, but as more reports come in, it seems like something else my be afoot. Apparently, folks who have purchased Guitar Hero III from Wal-Mart are reporting that the game comes with the old guitars rather than the new ones".
» Read More 

According to early tests conducted by IGN, the most compatible controller is Xbox 360's Guitar Hero 2 X-plorer model, which works with both upcoming titles, although you cannot use the special effects to the lack of a five-way switch. The GH3 Les Paul controller works with everything except the PS2 version of GH2 (played on a PS3, natch) and, like the X-plorer, cannot activates effects.

Rock Band's stratocaster, however, does not work with any Guitar Hero title on the Xbox 360. (IGN has not been able to test the PS3 version yet.) A statement released by Harmonix said, among other things, that they "welcome any 3rd party software that wishes to support Rock Band guitars. If a 3rd party guitar / music game does not support the Rock Band guitar controller, questions regarding this should be directed to the game manufacturer."
» Read More 

Via Ripten:

"The much anticipated Guitar Hero III sequel from Activision and RedOctane is set to hit shelves October 28th (this Sunday), with an estimated 3,000 plus retailers organizing midnight release parties.

Hit up your local Wal-Mart beforehand, and buy that cranky neighbor of yours a few extra pillows to block out the sounds, cuz' practice makes perfect, and you my friend are on a quest for perfection that starts at midnight, and stops when you damn well say so!" Press release after the jump.
» Read More 

Several distribution companies are receiving complaints this morning as the street date for GH III has been broken. Sears is the best known retailer to release the game early so far. No word from Activision yet on any repercussions.
» Read More 

The magazines Alternative Press, Decibel, Guitar Player, Kerrang and Paste will give players a chance to see their names in print. Activision has also signed up notable musical instrument and equipment manufacturers including Gibson, Crate, Krank, Mackie and Zildjian, and companies with little to do directly with music at all, like Pontiac and Axe, so their products can appear in the game.
» Read More 

Activision announced this morning that just about every song to ever appear in a Guitar Hero game will be available on iTunes under Guitar Hero Essentials. A total of 1,300 guitar anthems on 20 separate essentials awaits to be downloaded.
» Read More