Yeah, it's Fall '08 (maybe they'll beat the Thanksgiving sales rush, like Rock Band last year). The article mentioned that they'll be using the bandmate animation interaction technology that will be rolled out with GH:Aerosmith. It's still pretty exciting to me... maybe I'll post a picture of the drum set tonight... it's too bad Activision's behavior in the recent past suggests that their new kit will work only with GH branded products, I'd really love to have that drum set for my Rock Band...

(Did I mention all of their peripherals, including drums, are going to be wireless?? )

So when are these games going to jump the shark?

I wasn't a fan of GHIII's boss battles at all. Hopefully they go back to a more traditional play through experience in the next one.

I have two wireless guitars and never had an issue with either of them.

I haven't had any issues with my 360 either. Doesn't mean the quality control wasn't crap.

I actually didn't mind the covers so much. I'm happy either way so long as the recording band is good. I thought all over the covers they've done since the original right up until GH3 have all been top notch.

Can't comment on Rock Band but considering the Harmonix involvement I would suspect the same, or are they all master tracks?

The few covers that I can recall; Rush comes to mind, are really done well. I've not had a problem with any of them where I already knew the song(s). They all sound pretty good to my uneducated ear.

Here's the pic of drums I promised earlier... (hope it works with Picasaweb)

I really like the look of this drum kit over the RB version, and agree that the addition of actual symbols are a step in the right direction without making it too complex. Harmonix does have a good track record for making peripherals and don't forget its WIRELESS!

I was thinking the same thing. Add in the noise reduction, and you're going to have a very solid product. Dammit. I have too many plastic peripherals in the house already. Two toy drum sets in as many years won't go over well. By then I should be able to use the, "It costs less than a tank of gas," argument.

Doesn't seem too likely considering the fact that the RB drum-kit had four pads (plus pedal) whereas the GHTW one has five (plus pedal).

Right, but I mean if the GH4 one works in RockBand, I can sell my old drum kit and use it for both.

It's interesting. Since I'm fairly certain the peripherals will NOT be compatible, it will all come down to tracklists and DLC. I thought the tracklist on GH3 was much stronger than Rock Band out of the box (DLC notwithstanding) - if they got rid of boss battles it would have been much stronger. I also really, really dislike covers and thought GH3 made good strides in that direction. Rock Band's DLC was infinitely better, though, which is huge.

WHAT THE HELL MAN

Is this confirmed? Why hasn't Rock Band done this?

I've seen and played a bit of Rock Band and it's really cool, but I can't justify a 900-1,000 dollar expense just for it (xbox + game)

I will buy the new Guitar Hero if Downloadable content is available for Wii.

It all looks great but I hope that the drum set is easy to fold up and store away. I really don't want to spend 5 min taking it apart every time I don't want to use it.

Activision said that GH3 on Wii would have DLC, too, but then never delivered. Have they confirmed that GHWT will have it out-of-the-box, and not as a "it'll come later, but maybe we'll just forget about it" after-the-fact add-on?

The more I think about it, the more those early comments from Harmonix about Rock Band being a "platform" seem very spot-on, with all the connotations that implies. With GHWT on the horizon, and many people limited by loungeroom space or spousal harmony on the number of crappy plastic peripherals we can own, we really are entering a whole new era of Console Wars.