A few years back there was this craze - Guitar Hero. All the kiddies loved it because you could pretend to be a rock star, playing your plastic guitar just like the pros. The disillusioned youth of America were sure they had what it took to jam with the best of them.
Guitar hero was a sensation. Building off of the Dance Dance Revolution style of play, it was top of the food chain. Then someone had the bright idea called Rock Band. It took the same concepts and applied it to a whole rock band of instruments. Now you had drums and vocals! The drums and vocals of this game were a lot better at actually being applicable to real life, so we'll give them some credit. Anyone could've taken a cheap electronic drum set and a crappy little mic and added them to the game, but they did it first and they did it well.
Again, we had another sensation. However, there was always this key element to the games - a cheap plastic "guitar" toy. Not long ago I saw some actual progress on that end of things. The Kitara - I mentioned a while back in my Technology and Innovation in Music post. However, this doesn't appear to be a game - and they cost between $850-2500. Another non-game idea is Fretlight, a guitar with light up frets to help you learn to play.
These things are missing the game aspect that many have made bank on. Not that they aren't good ideas - I mean, the kitara blows my mind and I would love to play around with one sometime. They just aren't really competing with the cheap plastic crap that's out there making real money (well, not so much money now...)
Then yesterday, I came across Ubisoft's Rocksmith. This is a game that you use a REAL guitar with. You plug it in and play the Guitar Hero game with a REAL instrument (you can use any guitar you own ...a game for real guitarists!). Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and all the rest, I couldn't get into. A plastic guitar is not fun. This, on the other hand, is genius. I'm sure tons of people have thought of it, but these guys did it. Though it's not out yet, I feel like it'll be a hit.
This is for both the novice and the experienced guitarist. The only real negative thing I see is that there are already like a million kids who "play" guitar. I'm all about not having more people suck at guitar and then tell their friends that they are a "guitar hero." However, I could see this being a great tool for real guitarists and the actual aspiring guitarist. Like the guy in the video says, this is an alternative to tableture - in game form. I hated looking up tabs and struggling through them way back when. It's frustrating. This would make that fun and I think a lot of people could benefit from this.
Thoughts?
