Activision's Guitar Hero franchise has set an industry record, surpassing $1 billion in North American retail sales in just 26 months, according to The NPD Group. Additionally, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was the #1 title in units and dollars for calendar year 2007, making it the best-selling video game of all time in a single calendar year. Since its initial release in fall 2005, the Guitar Hero franchise has sold in excess of 14 million units in North America alone, according to The NPD Group. In 10 weeks since the game's launch, consumers have already downloaded more than five million songs. "Guitar Hero is one of the biggest brands and one of the most powerful distribution platforms in all of entertainment today," said Michael Griffith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Activision Publishing, Inc. "Guitar Hero's popularity with broad audiences is a confirmation that video games have become a true mass medium."

Replacement discs for the Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock should begin shipping in Feburary. "The game has been approved by Nintendo and is currently in manufacturing," publisher Activision wrote in an e-mail to those who had registered for a replacement disc. "We expect to have the replacement discs available in February." After the game released in late October, it came to light that the Vicarious Visions-developed Wii edition of Neversoft's Guitar Hero III outputted songs in mono, though all other versions of the game were unaffected. Activision later acknowledged the issue and announced that it would provide replacement discs. To register for a new disc, consumers are urged to visit ActivisionGameExchange or call (866) 780-8286 between 8:00am-8:00pm EST, Monday-Friday.

The Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock demo is due to hit Xbox Live Marketplace tomorrow, October 23, In the US. The demo features five songs from the final game and can be played with either the original X-plorer guitar controller or, if you still haven't succumbed to Guitar Hero's charms, a boring old controller. Activision's demo contains the following tracks: Even Flow (by Pearl Jam), Lay Down (by Priestess), The Metal (by Tenacious D), Hit Me with your Best Shot (as made famous by Pat Benatar), Rock You like a Hurricane (as made famous by Scorpions).

Rocking out with a big plastic guitar will soon no longer be purely the privilege of the console owning masses, as Aspyr announces an exclusive deal with Activision to develop and publish Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC and Mac platforms this fall. On top of all of the regular features of the game, Aspyr's version will allow PC and Mac users to battle against each other in online multiplayer.

Since Harmonix and Activision went their separate ways, each company is developing a new rock-based game. Activision is busy developing Guitar Hero 3, and Harmonix is making Rock Band. Over at Gamasutra, Activision explained why they think Guitar Hero 3 will be the better of the two...by claiming that Rock band is a Guitar Hero imitator. Activision implied that Rock Band will merely be a Guitar Hero retread rather than an original game. However, one could claim that Harmonix has every right to, considering that they originally made the game, and they helped make Konami's Guitar Freaks series.

Since acquiring the Guitar Hero license and franchise from Red Octane, Activision has handed it over to Neversoft for development of Guitar Hero 3. Harmonix decided that it will do Rock Band with the help of MTV and Electronic Arts (EA).

We already posted a press release which talked all about how there really was going to be a Guitar Hero 3, and how it was going to be for the PS2 and Xbox360. The press release went on about how sweet Guitar Hero was going to be.

While Guitar Hero 3 looks good on paper, IGN actually went through the trouble of reviewing a pre-release version of the game.

Guitar Hero 3 is much different from either of the two previous versions of the game. The first thing dedicated fans of the game will notice is Neversoft's interest in tweaking the difficulty. At this point, they aren't doing a good job...Guitar Hero "experts" were constantly failing songs in the pre-release version of GH3. Neversoft claims that when they actually release the game, the difficulty will be "just right", between the first and second game's level of difficulty.

SUNNYVALE, CA - May 23, 2007 - After warming their amps in the basement garage to rocking sold out shows at Stonehenge, fans of Activision, Inc.'s (Nasdaq: ATVI) wildly popular Guitar Hero franchise will now be able to shred like never before with the next iteration of the game that will be available this fall. The new game will be released on the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system and PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Wii video game system from Nintendo.

Neversoft, a software firm that has recently undertook a lot of major games, is announcing that they will make some of their games compatible with Nintendo platforms. In the past, Neversoft, which has helped make games such as Spider-man, was focused on making games purely for Microsoft and Sony platforms. Now, they have decided to add support for the Wii and DS. They will do this by porting games that they own, including Spider-man, Shrek, Transformers, and Guitar Hero (Guitar Hero is no longer a Harmonix title, they sold it to Neversoft).