Viacom just made the news for selling Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band, for millions. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/business/media/24viacom.html for that story.

I posted about Rock Band before and yes we are still excited about Rock Band 3 and it’s new instruments . . . even though it’s out in the US but folks here don’t seem to know anything about it.

Actually, Lorraine was recently in Singapore at an entertainment media trade show and the folks there who were hawking all things platform gamewise knew nothing about Rock Band 3’s new instruments and pretty much made it sound like we’re just crazy people imagining things when we say that there exist.

Sheesh.

Well, Guitar Hero’s pretty much locked up the Asian market and Rock Band does not seem to even bother to try to compete . . . which is too bad for those of us on this side of the planet as we would really like to get our grubbies on those new instruments.

Actually, I had hoped to give Kaye the new guitars and the keyboard for Christmas but so far we’ve yet to find even a grey market version let alone an official release here in Taiwan.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m yammering about . . .

There are two new guitars, a pro mode with tons of buttons and a string prep to simulate using a real guitar but without the need to actually use one and build up the finger strength and callouses and the like and a real electric guitar that is a genuine playable guitar. Honestly, I think these would be great for Kaye as she loves music but doesn’t play guitar and this would be a great way to learn and get the feel of the beast . . . seriously, that’s the direction Harmonix seems to be going.

Here’s a video on the guitars:

Want to see the real guitar controller in action a bit more? Here’s some actual game play:

The other neat new instrument is the keyboard which the music games haven’t had until now. Since Kaye is a piano and composition major in her music specialty high school program, this is perfect for her. Sure, it looks like a toy but still it’s worth having and we’re really looking forward to snarfing one of these things.

Here’s a video on the keyboard:

I’m thinking that eventually, Rock Band (they will do this long before Guitar Hero does) will have things set up so that folks can use real USB based genuine professional equipment with their platform games and the beastie will begin being used as educational tools for teaching folks how to play the real deal. Yes, even full trap electronic drum sets will be in play as well as full size digital midi keyboard controllers (btw, Lorraine and I gave Kaye just such a full size 88 key midi keyboard controller for Christmas this year).

Rock Band and Guitar Hero may be games but they are also educational tools already in terms of how they expose young people to the music and the concepts of the music business. It is no large stretch that eventually the instruments will be real as well.

In any case, we had hoped to have seen this stuff in the stores here in time for Chirstmas but it seems doubtful that they will even release the new peripherals here at all. Grrrr. I guess we will have to schedule a hypnosis course or two for me to teach in the US this Summer just so we have an excuse to pick the beasties up.

All the best,
Brian