Tag Archives: guitar hero

Speaking during his DICE keynote last night, Activision boss Bobby Kotick said that not buying Harmonix was a big mistake.

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Activision Blizzard revealed during its full-year investor call tonight that it plans to release only two music games this year.

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Activision’s just confirmed its releasing new titles for Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Spiderman series’s by the end of 2010.

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Activision’s announced David Haddad will become the new CEO of the Guitar Hero franchise.

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Looks like the lawsuit between Activision and pissed-off rockers over Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero is still on the docket, if Courtney Love’s newest comments are any indication.

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Activision has announced its February line-up of music track packs for Guitar Hero 5 DLC.

Looks like master tracks from Black Sabbath, 30 Seconds to Mars, Breaking Benjamin and new renditions from Third Eye Blind will be on hand.

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Darren Richardson, president and CEO of Mad Katz, had told Kotaku that the reason the original Guitar Hero game only launched on PS2 was because the firm pulled out of doing a Xbox SKU due to a lawsuit between Harmonix and Konami.

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Those of you who are thinking about hanging up your cape up and tights and quitting the Guitar Hero business might want to reconsider. Speaking with the Seattle Times, Guitar Hero founder Kai Huang gave fans a glimpse into the future of his finger-frying franchise.

“We haven’t made any specific announcements of what we’re doing with new technologies in Guitar Hero 6 and beyond, but one of the areas we’re exploring certainly is camera technology and what you can do — track your movements and maybe have your characters on the screen do certain things you’re doing, or personalize it more so it can look more like you on stage rather than just be an avatar,” he said.

“There are a lot of possibilities that technologies like Natal will bring, and we’re definitely exploring those possibilities.”

Rock Band’s next installment, meanwhile, is aiming for more realism, which almost assuredly means drugs, alcoholism, being stalked by a starving paparazzi that subsists off your soul, and crazy fans who want to steal your clothes and auction them on eBay.

Oh, he was talking about the instruments? You don’t say.

More through the link.

According to a Seattle Times interview with Red Octane co-founder Kai Huang, Activision may consider a subscription based service for future Guitar Hero DLC.

“That’s definitely one of the things we would love to do,” Huang said. “There are a lot of issues around music licensing. Customers want it. I know I want it. We’re trying to make that happen.”

It may be simpler that way. Pay a monthly fee, like a lot of other music services, and download all you want.

Providing more than 10 songs are put out a month and it’s cheap, it might eventually be the way to go.

More through the Seattle Times, via 1UP.

In probably the most obvious news of the day, Activision’s Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig has told MCV that the “next iterations” of Band Hero, DJ Hero and Guitar Hero are in the works.

Keep breathing. You don’t want to go into shock, there, kiddos.

“We’re working on our 2010 slate now,” he told the site. “You will probably see fewer SKUs from us, but the focus on making the best-selling, most fun to play, best-reviewed games will continue. Those are the things that are constant.

“[There will be] more DJ Hero, and the next iterations of Guitar and Band are on the way. But we will see how the market plays out. What you will see is the games will live longer and be more vibrant through DLC.”

More through the link, courtesy of Joystiq.

Activision confirmed in it’s Q3 financial results last week that we will see new Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games next year.

We have a winner for the “no shit sherlock” tag.

The COD game will assumingly be under Treyarch, with possible plans to head to Vietnam in the next game. As for Guitar Hero 6, your guess is as good as ours.

The publisher also announced new Spiderman and Shrek games to be released next year.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Microsoft’s developed a system of muscle computer sensors that can be used for the greater good of human kind. And to play Guitar Hero without a controller.

Check out the video after the break. The guy “presses” the coloured buttons by pushing his fingers together. A cyborg bicep sensor array does all the work.

The future. Made real. Right now. On this website.

Thanks, Engadget and Procrastineering.

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Here’s a shock for you – almost a third of all Guitar Hero players are female.

“A very large group really wants great guitar music, and they don’t want us to confuse that,” Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig told Gamepro.

“And there’s another group of people who love that, but also love to have more current music, more family music, music more popular for girls – 30 percent of our players are already girls, and we want that to grow.

“One of the great things about having a franchise like this is you can really meet all kinds of consumer demand.”

Place your bets on sex split for DJ Hero now.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

Guitar Hero may have a hardware-less future, if comments made by Red Octane president and co-founder Kai Huang to DigitalSpy are to be believed.

“We’ve definitely been evaluating Microsoft’s Natal technology along with a lot of other different technologies that could enhance the Guitar Hero playing experience,” Huang said.

“Natal is very interesting because there’s so many different things you can do with it, whether it’s the motion detecting, maybe sensing how you’re playing, or the ability to use it for interactivity purposes and taking advantage of it for party purposes…

“We’re evaluating it, and I think it’s likely that sometime in the future we’ll have those technologies integrated into our games.”

Huang’s comments come after Acti boss Bobby Kotick said recently that Guitar Hero games may soon not need a console. All that’s left to get rid of now is the game itself. Imagine: you pay Bobby money, and you consume music without having to press any buttons or hold a plastic guitar. You just “hear” it.

Bet that’s roasting your goose, non?

Thanks, 1UP.

Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig is a silver lining kineaguy. Sales in the music games sector may be down nearly 50 percent this year, but all he sees is the fact that four fifths of games consoles don’t have a music title attached to them.

“We’re focused on providing value to the consumer, so I don’t think [the music games market's] saturated,” he told CNBC.

“If you actually look at the consoles that are out there on a global basis, less than 20 percent actually have a music game. So there’s the next 80 percent that we have the opportunity to go after.

!There’s more consoles, those consoles are getting more connected, and we have the opportunity to sell more into that audience.”

Hell yeah. Did you Activision expects Guitar Hero to be the “number two selling game franchise” this year next to Call of Duty? You do now. Watch that movie.

Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has told the BBC that the band would possibly consider a music game centered around the band, especially seeing as how the Beatles did it.

“I think we’d consider it,” he said. “Everyone’s looking at new ways of selling the music because the business of selling records has almost disappeared.”

The source article for this a bit old, what with Bill Wyman moaning about plastic instruments and such, but you may have skimmed over the Pink Floyd bit, so there it is.

We think the band should just allow Rock Band 2 to offer up Wish You Were Here in it’s entirety instead.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Activision boss Bobby Kotick is his own man. He doesn’t need consoles to shovel his guitar-based brand of music game to the masses. No sir.

“You should expect to see many of our products to be playable on the television independent of a console,” he said this week, speaking at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco.

Like, seriously. He added:

“I think what the untethered Guitar Hero does is it maybe equals the playing field a little bit more and gives you leverage with first parties on downloadable content and the business model.”

This’d be awesome. Kotick won’t be able to threaten console manufacturers any more, however, which would be a bit rubbish.

More on IGN.

Rock Band’s bad. Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason say it stops people learning how to actually play musical instruments.

“It encourages kids not to learn, that’s the trouble,” Wyman told the BBC.

“It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument. I think is a pity so I’m not really keen on that kind of stuff.”

Mason described the likes of Rock Band and Guitar Hero as “interesting new developments,” but added:

“It irritates me having watched my kids do it – if they spent as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they’d be damn good by now.”

We’re saying nothing. You’ll be able to press buttons along to Beatles songs in return for hundreds of pounds tomorrow, don’t forget.

Activision has confirmed that Guitar Hero: Van Halen will not be released in Europe until 2010.

Granted, it comes out in the US on December 22, so “TBD 2010″ could mean January 1. Ya never know.

We know you are bummed over this.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Activision was quick to talk about its line-up of music-centic games coming this year during its call to investors, and there are loads of ‘em as you would expect.

Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and DJ Hero are all expected before the end of the year and now you can add the elusive Guitar Hero: Van Halen to the mix.

Expected to launch on December 22, the title will feature 19 other bands besides Van Halen, as we’ve told you before, and has 25 VH tracks on the disc with three guitar solos for a total of around 47 songs.

It is to be made available for PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Full track list is posted after the break.

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