Good news, plastic rockers -- Activision announced at E3 today that its upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour game will work with Rock Band's controllers, including the drumkit, and that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on Xbox 360 has received an update that "should" make the game compatible with Harmonix's axes. Nothing too wild on the Aerosmith tip, as the guitars should just work now (finally!), but Activision's had to do some work to make World Tour play nice: the game is designed for a five-pad drumkit, but it'll compress down to four to work with Rock Band's set. See? Friends all around. Is that so hard, guys?

Read - Guitar Hero: Aerosmith updated
Read - Guitar Hero: World Tour

Sure, Guitar Hero and Rock Band have fake plastic Gibson and Fender controllers, but cheap plastic ain't exactly rock'n'roll -- which is why this new StarPex PS2 / PS3 guitar controller looks pretty sweet. The ersatz Strat features a hardwood body and neck crafted by "a leading guitar manufacturer" (we'd bet $100 it's made by Samick), as well as solo buttons, an Overdrive / Star Power button in addition to the tilt sensor, and both wired and wireless capabilities. On top of that, the electronics are modular, so you'll eventually be able to swap parts and build your own custom axe. Sounds great -- but you better start singing in the subway, since this thing'll set you back $179 when it goes on sale late next month. Yeah, maybe we'll stick with the plastic axes after all.

We've seen a lot of Guitar Hero bots in our time, but we're pretty certain that Mechanized Rock's take on shredding automatons is something special. The system -- dubbed DeepNote -- actually watches the on-screen action with "eyes" that it uses to analyze notes, which the bot then plays in real-time. Using photodiodes aimed at the screen, the components pick up changes in light within eight nanoseconds, then convert that information to brazen, parent-shocking, full-throttle rock n' roll. As you well know, pictures say a thousand words (and video is prone to run-on sentences), so watch DeepNote in action in the clip after the break.

While the axe that comes with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is pretty sweet, if you were hoping to just get the game and use your Rock Band guitar, you're out of luck. Despite rumors that Activision had opened its doors to the Harmonix-made Rock Band guitar controllers, early users of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith are reporting that the Xbox 360 version game isn't being so friendly after all. The sad message: "An unsupported guitar peripheral has been detected. Connect either a Guitar Hero guitar or Xbox 360 controller and press START to continue." It's like they never even knew each other.

Well, what do you know? That Guitar Hero axe that was spotted a few months back on How I Met Your Mother was actually a sneak peek of the six string that comes bundled with the new Activision title. The unwavering rockers over at FW Labs were able to secure a copy of the game in Chile before most everyone else on the planet, and rather than enjoying their fortune without telling a soul, they decided to snap a host of photos and even upload a few videos of the experience. The new toys in the attic are right there in the read link.

[Thanks, David]

Alright, so Guitar Hero: On Tour technically went on sale on Sunday, but who launches a game on Sunday? Anyway, the DS version of the rocker franchise is now available, goofy Guitar Grip accessory included, for just $49 of your hard-fought dollars. Reviews of the control system have been pretty positive so far, and the game itself looks like it's a solidly fun time -- even if that insanely bad promo video had us convinced otherwise for a while. Rockers -- to arms!

[Thanks, Wraggster]

We've already seen plenty of Guitar Hero World Tour's drums, but while we've heard rumblings of a touchpad for the new guitar, this is the first time we've seen it in the flesh. IGN has a preview of all the new gear, and says the strip will be used for fiddling around with notes during sustains, tapping to play notes, and for interfacing with the new music creator. The guitar is also larger than its other toy guitar predecessors. In other news, the drums are pressure sensitive, the mic is pretty plain, and the music creation software is completely off the chain. Unfortunately, you won't be allowed to record vocals for songs, but otherwise you can pretty much build anything you'd want with the software. In even better news, the Wii version of World Tour will share all these features, and while we promised ourselves we wouldn't install two full sets of fake band gear in our living room, we're starting to get some serious cravings here.

If you've been wondering just how you're going to play Guitar Hero on the DS, the answer is upon you. For the extreme in cringe-worthy videos, we present the Guitar Hero: On Tour promo, replete with some of the worst faux-rock music and singing your ears and eyes have ever been subjected to. If this doesn't make you want to impale yourself on the nearest sharp object, nothing will. We're not sure if they were going for irony here -- all we see is fail... oh, and the game looks pretty impossible to play too. Video after the break.

[Via Digg]

A little earlier today Activision CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar Hero World Tour to the audience at D -- but he wasn't content doing something trite like picking up a guitar (or drums) and playing himself. Oh no, he trotted out Paula Abdul (to judge), and Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as the front-men for the virtual band. The video's after the break; it's a little bit front-heavy during the introduction, but there's certainly enough gameplay footage in there to get a basic idea of what to expect: Rock Band.

Now that we've been enticed with what Guitar Hero World Tour will look like, GameStop has revealed the upcoming rock simulator's price and release date. $189.99 will get you the Guitar Hero World Tour "Band Kit" with drum kit, guitar, and microphone. Meanwhile, the "Guitar Kit" at $99.99 will come with just the guitar controller. For those of you who want to use your current controller (assuming current controllers will work), the game-only version will run $59.99 (or $49.99 for the PS2 and Wii). The game's ship date, as of now, is set at 10/27/08.

We've already had a few glimpses of the drum kit for the now-official Guitar Hero: World Tour, but if you want a better look at the device that'll be cluttering up your apartment this fall, you may want to hit up the site linked below, which contains a promotional video showing the kit being played by some actual drummers. There's not a lot of new information to be found otherwise, but as none other than Stuart Copeland helpfully reminds us, the kit is in fact wireless. No headband included though, it seems.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

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Everybody knows us bloggers are a bunch of pantsless hooligans, but a lesser known fact is that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith comes with a new pants-free mode, as demonstrated in a lengthly sequence on this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother. Problem is, Jason Segel -- who we most fondly remember as Nick the drummer from Freaks and Geeks -- likely wouldn't be caught dead playing Aerosmith on the guitar, so stop trying to mess with our heads CBS. We know the truth.

[Thanks, Jeff]

When it comes to sussing out info on Guitar Hero IV, we've seen blurry images and scanned pictures, but now Activision is getting all official on us with a Fall release date and complete feature list. So here's what we know: Guitar Hero: World Tour (as it's called) will include a drum kit with cymbals, a new guitar controller, and a microphone. In terms of game modes, look for a Music Studio music creator that will let you compose, record, edit, and share your own music -- fear that -- and an 8-player "Battle of the Bands" should keep things interesting both on and offline. They're calling it "The Guitar Hero experience reinvented" and we can't argue with that, at least until the game actually comes out in Fall 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2. Peep the official trailer and Lenny Kravitz ubiquity after the break.

[Via Boy Genius]

Now that we know what Guitar Hero IV's drums will look like, it seems Activision is saying "We don't need no stinkin' replicas!" for the game's guitar controller design. Spotted in Guitar Hero: World Tour's debut trailer, the new axe appears to be a black or cherry non-Gibson, non-Fender, non-anything instrument of random design. We're not surprised, as Activision is surely gun-shy after all those lawsuits and what-not.

Whatever the DS can do, Wii can do better, right? Apparently Dave agrees with said mantra, as he has converted a Wii Guitar Hero axe into a full-fledged MIDI controller. As in, there's a 5-pin jack down there and everything. In its current state, you can play two octaves of an eight note scale at time, alter the keys / octaves, change tonal modes, use the whammy bar to bend the pitch and blow the minds of electrical engineering buds you still see on a regular basis. Granted, this mod isn't exactly for the faint of heart, but feel free to hit the read link if you're hacker enough to handle it.

[Via MAKE]