The BBC reports that Pink Floyd has "has not ruled out working on" a rhythm game though Floyd drummer Nick Mason is none too fond of the genre, Kotaku spotted.

"It irritates me having watched my kids do it - if they spent as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they'd be damn good by now," said Mason.

However, asked about The Floyd "working on" a rhythm game on the future, Mason told the BBC "I think we'd consider it," explaining "I think everyone's looking at new ways of selling the music because the business of selling records has almost disappeared."

Pink Floyd's music has yet to feature in either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Rock legends The Beatles star in a Rock Band of their very own, while Guitar Hero instalments have been dedicated to Aerosmith and Metallica, with Van Halen hitting on December 22.

Occassionally villified Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has made another revelation bound to spark some interesting conversation, admitting that "the goal that I had [at Activision]...about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

The comment came during a Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference attended by GameSpot, during which Kotick spoke rather frankly regarding the company's culture, future and focus on profit.

The head of Activision Blizzard--one of, if not the, largest game publishers, known for such hits as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft--noted that the company's incentive program "really rewards profit and nothing else," adding that "skepticism, pessimism, and fear" are used to keep employees "focused on the deep... Read more

While relatively sluggish sales of Guitar Hero World Tour has some convinced that the music game series has peaked, Signal Hills analyst Todd Greenwald disagrees.

"Guitar Hero sell-through [is] a bit soft, but not a disaster," he explained to Edge. "Despite this 'weakness,' we disagree strongly with those who contend that Guitar Hero is a 'fad,' or that the franchise peaked last year with [Guitar Hero III]."

Explaining his belief, Greenwald noted that the overall franchise is "up substantially (including extensions like Guitar Hero Aerosmith and Guitar Hero On Tour)."

He added that North American sales for the franchises could be over 20% for the year, "while Europe could be up nearly 300 percent."

And with Activision planning to triple Guitar Hero releases by 2010, Greenwald noted the potential of further growth for next year, pointing to titles like Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Jimi Hendrix, DJ Hero, "and more."

Sure, Rock Band and Guitar Hero have inspired many to take the leap into learning a real-life instrument, but that didn't appeal to electro-rockers The Guitar Zeros.

Instead, they opted to craft custom software for use with Guitar Hero instruments that, according to Current, allows them to create "thousands of sounds" and songs.

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"Listen, I can't keep up with this shit," complained Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich in response to the internet pointing out that the Guitar Hero III DLC version of the band's new album Death Magnetic is of better quality than the CD on store shelves.

Speaking to Blender, Ulrich sounded much more educated on the issue than he gave himself credit for. "You gotta remember, when we put out '...And Justice for All,' people were going, 'What happened to these guys, this record? ... It sounds like it was recorded in a fuckin' garage on an eight-track.' And now '...And Justice for All' is sort of the seminal Metallica record that supposedly influenced a whole generation of death-metal bands."

As for the new record, Ulrich defended album producer Rick Rubin who allegedly "compressed" the record, sacrificing ... Read more

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has once again come out swinging in his public shouting match with record labels including Warner Music, suggesting that maybe the publisher behind the Guitar Hero series deserves compensation for including songs from labels in the hit rhythm-music series.

"When you look at the impact [Guitar Hero] can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it's really significant," Kotick told the Wall Street Journal as relayed by Edge. "So much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse."

Guitar Hero: World Tour, bane of existence for record labels everywhere

Kotick also echoed a point recently made by games industry analyst... Read more

Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash has let slip that there will be a Guitar Hero title centered on 1969 Woodstock headliner and Greatest Guitarist of All Time Jimi Hendrix.

Slash, speaking on tribute games Guitar Hero: Metallica and Aerosmith, said to Rolling Stone: "Those are two ones that I think gives it some credibility. And they're doing a Hendrix one, which is great."

As one of the original Guitar Heroes, Slash speaks with authority and enthusiasm on how the real-world music industry interacts with the plastic-guitar-jamming franchise. "You have to understand how the game works and what band really fits in to that," explained Slash. "AC/DC is probably the top one. They don't need the boost, but that would be the top one," he added.

World Tour, the latest Guitar Hero title

Official confirmation of the game, or information on platforms or a release date, has yet to come from Guitar Hero series publisher Activision.

Internet audiophiles have discovered that the Guitar Hero version of Metallica album Death Magnetic is of better quality than the retail CD recently released by label Universal--and they have science to back it up.

"The CD version ... has been heavily compressed, limited and/or clipped, and sounds massively distorted as a result," said recording industry mixing engineer Ian Shepard in a blog post relayed by Wired.

The Guitar Hero version, on the other hand, uses a fuller dynamic range, as illustrated by a soundwave comparison pictured above. The more dynamic Guitar Hero version is more likely to resemble the songs as recorded by the group.

In this case, "compression" does not refer to data compression like MP3 files, but rather a "part of the 'loudness war,'" a recording industry technique in which the music's dynamic range (the range from soft to loud) is squished together to make music sound as loud as possible.

The technique, commonly used in TV commercials, means that the retail CD is ten decibels louder than the $18 Guitar Hero III DLC, or twice as loud to the human ear.

Activision is considering a subscription service to deliver new songs monthly for its music-rhythm series Guitar Hero, according to Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith during Activision Blizzard's Analyst Day event yesterday. As Griffith explained:

Looking even further out, we're exploring new models, like an annual pass subscription where players can subscribe and get a certain number of songs downloadable each month.

No further details, such as a price or a start date for such a program, were made available. The plan would, however, be just part of Activision's plan to "monetize" the Guitar Hero series.

"We've learned that the consumer still has an insatiable appetite for more," said Griffith. "Consumers have downloaded over 20 million individual songs for the franchise, and they still tell us they want more," he added.

"In fact, the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game delivered 10x the revenue compared to Aerosmith's most recently released CD in 2004, when comparing equivalent launch periods," Griffith continued. Most of the revenue from the game, of course, went in Activision's direction instead of Aerosmith's.

Inclusion in the Guitar Hero series boosts real-world sales of a song by an average of 200 to 300%, according to Zach Horowitz, President and COO of the Universal Music Group during Activision Blizzard's Analyst Day event.

Universal has come down on Activision Blizzard's side in its public argument with record label Warner Music, which claimed it deserved more money for inclusion of its tracks in rhythm music games including Guitar Hero. Universal is the world's biggest record label with sales more than doubling those of Warner.

Horowitz added for emphasis that "My Name is Jonas," a Weezer track appearing in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, saw a real-world sales increase of a staggering 1,000% in the weeks following the game's release. How Universal arrived at those statistics is unclear, but Universal clearly sees a business opportunity in the rhythm-music genre that Warner may still be hesitant to acknowledge.

Activision Blizzard will triple the amount of Guitar Hero titles and content it offers by 2010, Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith revealed today at the company's Analyst Day.

That expansion extends to both retail titles and downloadable content for the popular multi-instrument music game series, and follows Activision's plans to double the amount of Guitar Hero releases in 2009.

The growth will be accomplished by bringing in more developers and more hardware suppliers, Griffith explained. Late last week, the company purchased UK developer FreeStyleGames, which is currently working on "localized downloadable content" for the Guitar Hero brand.

The next Guitar Hero game, officially dubbed World Tour but often referred to as Guitar Hero 4, hits PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii on October 26.

In recent history, Activision--publisher of the Guitar Hero series--and Warner Music--a massive record label with songs included in the music-rhythm games--have publicly played out a drama resembling an abusive relationship.

Famed gaming analyst Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan has now chimed in on the troubled couple, bluntly telling Gamasutra that "Activision doesn't 'need' Warner Music at all."

Warner started the fire by publicly complaining that video game studios, whether selling Guitar Hero or Harmonix's rival series Rock Band, don't pay record labels enough money for the rights to use those songs in the games. Activision countered by saying that Warner lacked respect for Guitar Hero.

Pachter's reasoning is straightforward: "There are over one million songs out there--probably two million--and Activision is going to turn fewer than a thousand of them into Guitar Hero songs every year." ... Read more

Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand director Brett Ratner hopes that, one day, he can make a film based on Guitar Hero.

"I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if [owner] Activision would ever let me," the director told MTV. I'm trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise?"

"Not that I would make a bad movie," he added. "It could be about a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition. One of these dreams-[come-true] kind of concepts."

Currenly slated to direct the film adaptation of Sony's God of War series, Ratner is no stranger to video games, especially Guitar Hero. His consultancy firm was responsible for Guitar Hero product placement in several music videos, and he claims to have come up with the name for Guitar Hero World Tour, the next entry in the music game series.

"They said, 'come up with a name,'" he boasted. "I did, and it became Guitar Hero World Tour."

Activision today revealed that it is planning to release future iterations in the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises during 2009.

According to Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith, the publisher's 2009 lineup will include "multiple new Guitar Hero SKUs [and] an all new Call of Duty [due to our] leapfrog studio strategy," along with the next Tony Hawk game.

The next batch of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games are arriving this fall in the form of Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War.

The "leapfrog studio strategy" refers to the company's practice of rotating development responsibilities. Series creator Infinity Ward has helmed Call of Duty 1, 2 and 4, while Treyarch has produced Call of Duty 3 and the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War.

The freshly conglomerated publisher Activision Blizzard is considering development of an online music platform similar to Apple's iTunes software utilizing the Guitar Hero brand, according to the Financial Times.

"I don't think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential," said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

The executive also stated that a Guitar Hero online music platform was a "natural evolution" of the franchise, which has generated over $1 billion in revenue for the company.

The newly formed Activision Blizzard arose from a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, which owns Universal Music. Kotick added that the music label could help the company create a venture which could successfully compete... Read more

Publishers Activision and MTV Games are courting representatives of the Beatles to license the wildly popular band's catalog for use in their respective rhythm franchises Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the Financial Times reports.

According to the report, both publishers have held discussions with representatives of the band concerning a "Beatles-themed video game."

It was not immediately clear whether the companies seek to license the music as downloadable content for existing titles or for a completely new Beatles-focused game, similar to Neversoft's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PS2, PS3, Wii, 360).

Any licensing agreements for the Beatles' catalog would first have to be cleared by Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation established by the band to oversee its business interests, as well as the music group EMI, which owns the Beatles' ... Read more

Details in an Activision SEC filing uncovered by GameSpot has confirmed the existence of a new Guitar Hero title focused on the long-running heavy metal act Metallica in Guitar Hero: Metallica, scheduled for release in early 2009.

"In fiscal 2009, we plan to publish Guitar Hero: On Tour for the NDS; Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica, and Guitar Hero IV across multiple platforms," the company said in the filing.

Activision's 2009 fiscal year ends on March 31 of next year, pinning the previously unannounced Guitar Hero: Metallica for a release prior to that time. The multiple-instrument update to the series, Guitar Hero IV, is expected this fall, making a release in the 2008 calendar year unlikely for Guitar Hero: Metallica.

No platforms were divulged in the filing, though Activision's other band-centric offshoot Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is slated to appear on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Wii.

Thanks to Masem for the heads up.

Fearless Records has announced that progressive rock band At the Drive-In will be contributing a song to an upcoming Guitar Hero title, most likely Neversoft's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

A press release issued by the record label stated that "One Armed Scissor" from the band's third album "Relationship of Command" will make an appearance in Guitar Hero IV alongside Aerosmith and Def Leppard. The label noted that the game is aimed for a release this June on "all major platforms including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC, Mac, and Nintendo DS."

However, publisher and property owner Activision has not yet officially announced Guitar Hero IV, though Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PS2, PS3, X360, Wii) has ... Read more

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said that the fourth installment of Neversoft's Guitar Hero franchise will incorporate additional instruments similar to competitor Harmonix's Rock Band (PS2, PS3, Wii, X360).

"[Guitar Hero IV's] not just about guitars," Kotick told IGN. "We'll include a lot of other instruments, vocals. It will help us expand internationally. It's the first game we've had in which we can use local content and local bands."

The runaway success of the multi-instrument rhythm game Rock Band, which includes drums and vocals on top of guitars, had led many to speculate that the traditionally guitar-only Guitar Hero franchise would eventually see the addition of more instruments.

Guitar Hero IV is expected for release this fall, as the third Guitar Hero title announced by Activision for release in 2008. The first two were announced as Guitar Hero: On Tour and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

It appears that British metal group Def Leppard may have up to three songs in the upcoming music-rhythm title Guitar Hero IV.

"We're going to have, like, three songs, I think, on Guitar Hero IV," guitarist Phil Collen said on Rockline Radio. "I think Photograph, Animal, and Rock of Ages."

While Guitar Hero IV has yet to be officially announced, franchise owner Activision previously confirmed it is a prepping a new Guitar Hero title for this fall, with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PS2, PS3, X360, Wii) and Guitar Hero: On Tour (NDS) due this summer.