If you thought the days of strumming away on guitars in a videogame were drawing to a close, think again. Activision may have washed its hands of Guitar Hero, but Ubisoft is picking up the slack with Rocksmith. Rocksmith hopes to differentiate itself from Guitar Hero by taking the Rock Band approach to realism.

After Gibson Guitars sued Guitar Hero’s publisher Activision and some major game retailers, alleging that the game infringes upon one of its patents (related to technology required for simulating a musical performance). It has realized that the other leading game in the music genre, Rock Band, is also in violation of its patent. Now Gibson Guitars is suing Rock Band’s developer Harmonix, its parent company MTV Networks and the game’s distributor, Electronic Arts…

After a long collaboration between the two companies on the very successful Guitar Hero franchise, in January 2008 Gibson Guitar Corp. filed a law suit against Activision Inc. for patent infringement claiming it has a patent for a system that simulates a concert experience and playing a virtual instrument. The suit asks for Activison to either stop manufacturing all components of the Guitar Hero video game or to pay a license fee for the system.

Earlier this week, Activision filed a lawsuit to complain to the Superior Court in California, claiming Gibson’s patent is invalid and the guitar maker has…

Activision today Today (August 2, 2007) announced 11 new tracks for multiplatform music sim Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. This increases the overall track list to 27 and includes master tracks from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slayer, The Strokes, Iron Maiden, AFI, Queens of the Stone Age and Dragonforce with covers of songs made famous by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Mountain, and ZZ Top.

Activision is definitely offering the monster track list in response to the mounting competition from upcoming Rock Band, which offers similar gameplay with expanded options (singing, drums and guitar). GH 3 will be released for the PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, and Wii this October (2007).

The new tracks are…

Guitar Hero III‘s name is out: It shall now be known as Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock! (Bummer they didn’t go with one of my suggestions). We also got out digital mitts on pictures of the controllers for the game, though the box art and official logo has not yet been released. All of more »

Activision finally put a few Guitar Hero rumors to rest with a press release last week. In the announcement, Activision states that the next Guitar Hero game by Red Octane will be available Fall 2007 for the PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Interestingly enough, no where in the press release does it call the more »