Yet another crazy music game fire sale from RedOctane today: For $49.99 on PS2, $59.99 on Wii or $69.99 on PS3 or 360, you can pick up a two-pack of Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits.

As an added bonus, you'll also get a free Guitar Hero World Tour shirt. Now, you should by no means wear this in public, but if you need to work on your car or play the Super Sloppy Double Dare home game, it's a nice perk.

If you already have a Guitar Hero guitar sitting around (at this point, it's statistically likely), RedOctane is offering an opportunity to finish your band kit and get a new(ish) game for a great price. The company's website is selling a pack containing a copy of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, along with a drum set and a microphone for $99.99, with free shipping. That's the exact same price the company is charging for just a drum set!

This package is, inexplicably, only available for Xbox 360 and Wii, and is only available today, so you don't have too much time to think about how weird it is to sell a Guitar Hero bundle with everything but the title instrument.

According to a press release sent out by Activision this morning, Dan Rosensweig, former chief operating officer for Yahoo! and Ziff-Davis executive, is now the President of Guitar Hero. This means that Guitar Hero is now a sovereign nation, and we can expect a mass defection of teenagers. Oh, wait, the press release says that he's the President and CEO of Activision's Guitar Hero business unit.

Rosensweig is now in charge of RedOctane, the former accessories maker and game rental service that is now the division of Activision producing the Guitar Hero games -- as well as, the press release notes, the "soon to be released DJ Hero(TM)." Kai Huang, RedOctane's founder, will "continue working at RedOctane reporting to Mr. Rosensweig." Ouch.

You wanna be privy to some exclusive, top secret information? Though it may sound like our usual brand of preposterous, blogger rabble rousing, we have reason to believe that Activision is working on ... another Guitar Hero game. It's true! Sources say that this next Guitar Hero will come out after the next Guitar Hero comes out.

...

Alright, so we have a few more details beyond that evergreen speculation. Let's switch to third-person! Joystiq has been informed that Activision's next artist-oriented Guitar Hero release will be based around Van Halen. According to Joystiq's source, the game is set to arrive sometime after Guitar Hero: Metallica and will include several songs hailin' from the Californian rock band's catalogue, including "Jump," "Panama" and "Hot for Teacher." You can also expect a smattering of songs from other bands, like Judas Priest's "Pain Killer," Tenacious D's "Master Exploder" and Weezer's "Dope Nose."

Activision was unable to lend the leaked information any more credence, saying, "The RedOctane/Guitar Hero team is currently focused on the upcoming release of Guitar Hero Metallica, as well as the recently announced titles Guitar Hero Greatest Hits and Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits, and does not comment on speculation or rumor." We didn't bother asking if Creedence is in it.

In an interview with IGN, Vicarious Visions confirmed that the new DS Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits will not be compatible with the DSi. "Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits was developed prior to the Nintendo DSi release and supports the more than 27 million DS Units that have already been sold in North America," Vicarious's David Nathanielsz said. "The game requires a GBA slot – either on the original Nintendo DS or the Nintendo DSLite – to play." Surprise! Of course, the team is looking into DSi compatibility and is "very excited about the possibilities open to us in the future."

In less obvious news, IGN posted the "preliminary" tracklist for the third DS Guitar Hero, which now features a nonlinear "fan request" based progression. 12 of the game's 25+ tracks were revealed, in addition to Sum 41's "Still Waiting," Franz Ferdinand's "The Fallen," and Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer," revealed by the ESRB.

Activision made a statement over the weekend about the nature of their Guitar Hero: World Tour "track pack" downloads and what it means for the Wii version. Pressure from two outside parties has constrained the DLC catalog, unfortunately. Some labels or artists will only give Activision the rights to distribute track packs, with individual sale of the contained songs prohibited. And for some reason, according to the statement, "the Wii's infrastructure only allows us the ability to release single songs as DLC."

That means that some artists will have to be excluded from the Wii's DLC offerings entirely. Like, for example, Jimi Hendrix. Because of these restrictions, none of the Jimi Hendrix tracks from the PS3/Xbox 360 set will be available. So it won't just be the limits of your ability that keep you from playing Hendrix songs.

[Thanks, Ferco!]

Some Guitar Hero: World Tour players are reporting sensitivity issues with the drums -- basically, that they have to pound the hell out of them to register a hit. If you're tired of having to go all Keith Moon all the time, Activision and Neversoft have a solution for you, and it's kind of an unexpected one: drum sensitivity tuning software.

Activision has released Windows-based tuning software which will allow players to connect their drum kits to their PCs and manually alter the sensitivity of each input. If that doesn't help, provided your overworked (but totally buff) arms can deal with the searing pain of motion long enough to lift the phone, you can report your sensitivity issues to Activision online or by phone at (310)255-2050.


[Via Joystiq]

Activision has made a deal with Amoeba Music, an independent California music store chain, that instantly imbues Guitar Hero: World Tour with indie cred that would otherwise be hard for a massively marketed corporate product to come by. Of course, this is part of that massive marketing effort, so maybe it could be seen more as Amoeba selling out than Guitar Hero gaining indie cred. In either case, it seems pretty cool to us: an Amoeba location will serve as an in-game venue, allowing players to pretend they're rocking out in a record store.

The promotion extends into the real world as well: if you preorder the game from one of the real Amoeba Music stores, you will receive a free t-shirt when you go in. It's not a free guitar, but it's also not nothing.


[Via GoNintendo]

Amazon is running another Gold Box promotion, as it is want to do, and featured right now is Guitar Hero: On Tour. The entire bundle is being sold for the low price of $29.99, which is around $20 less than the MSRP. If you've been waiting to test out the portable Guitar Hero waters, this just might be your chance.

You can see the sale for yourself by clicking right here.


[Thanks, supa_s!]

Activision is not satisfied with the current methods of making money from Guitar Hero, which are sadly limited to selling the game to people and then selling extra songs. According to a statement made by Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith at the Activision Blizzard Analysts' Day event, the company is looking to branch out into new ways of convincing people to pay more to play something they've already bought. Specifically, a subscription model, separate from the early rumor of a subscription-based online play scheme.

"Looking even further out," Griffith said, "we're exploring new models, like an annual pass subscription where players can subscribe and get a certain number of songs downloadable each month." Now, we make fun of the greed that motivates the annual release schedule, new instruments, piles of DLC, and pretty much everything else about Guitar Hero, but this is actually a cool idea. Like a Netflix for Guitar Hero songs.

Actiblizzion has announced that '90s fixture the Smashing Pumpkins have recorded a new song, "G.L.O.W." specifically for release as a Guitar Hero: World Tour download, marking the first time a new song has debuted in a music game under those specific circumstances. The track, which will be included on an album later, will be released as part of a three-song DLC pack, along with "1979" and "The Everlasting Gaze." The first in-concert performance of the new song is above, thanks to some dude who took a camera to a Pumpkins show!

The deal isn't just for DLC, however: Billy Corgan will appear in-game -- and as a playable character in career mode, even -- and the wonderful "Today" will be included on the disc. We hope it introduces the Pumpkins to some of the youngsters who may be surprised to learn that a long time ago, guitars had strings on them and could be used to play any song.

To say that Guitar Hero: World Tour has a lot of content is now an understatement. The game is so ridiculously full of goodies, fans are likely going to explogasm when they watch the video above. It goes into incredible detail, showing off the music creation fun you can have in Activision's latest installment in its popular franchise. Whether you're mixing drum loops for your tracks or turning your guitar into a keyboard (could this confirm a keyboard peripheral is inbound?), it looks like you won't be bored with Guitar Hero: World Tour anytime soon after its release.

Even if you're holding out for Guitar Hero: World Tour, or if you just have Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for some reason, 60 bucks for a copy of Guitar Hero III and a guitar is a nice deal. The Les Paul alone costs $60 from RedOctane's website, and it doesn't come with "Paint it Black."

The deal gets even more awesomer when combined with the current "buy one, get 20% off" Wii game deal. We aren't Toys R Us policy experts, and we don't want to guarantee that the store won't give you some kind of trouble if you try to double-dip deals, but you can probably get a cheap Guitar Hero and a second cheap game.

[Thanks, Emre!]

Logitech and Activision announced that "premium" Guitar Hero: World Tour instruments were on the way yesterday. We have yet to see or hear any real details about the items, so we don't know exactly in which ways or to what degree they'll be enhanced versus their standard RedOctane counterparts.

In the meantime, we'd like to ask what kind of "premium" features you would want out of guitar and drum controllers? More accurate size? Higher-quality materials? Real wood guitars? Mother-of-pearl dragon inlays? Also, how "premium" do you want these to go? How much are you willing to pay for a high-end guitar controller?

Activision and Logitech have announced a partnership through which Logitech will create "premium" instrument controllers for Guitar Hero: World Tour. It's not exactly clear from the press release, but we believe this means that Logitech will sell nicer, more expensive versions of the stock Guitar Hero instruments, not that they're producing the ones that come with the game. The new instruments will be fully compatible with World Tour, which basically means that the drums will have the appropriate number of pads and the guitar will have an insane touch pad on the neck.

It's not too much of a surprise, after Rock Band got its set of expensive drums, for Guitar Hero to follow suit with "premium" instruments. For extra instruments, this may not turn out to be a bad thing, since Logitech generally makes high quality peripherals. It seems like an uncomfortable position for RedOctane. They started out making music-game peripherals, including those for Guitar Hero, and moved into publishing. Now Activision owns them and publishes Guitar Hero, and Logitech is making instruments.