Anyways, Activision has recently released a trailer for none other than Band Hero. But wait, didn’t they add full band support to Guitar Hero: World Tour? Yes, but it’s Activision we’re talking about here.

Anyways, the trailer doesn’t show much other than what we’d except (band play) but it does show us a few songs that will be included in the game.

Trailer and known song list after the break.

GameStop has announced that they will be holding a summer sale that will see a plethora of games get dropped from their normal $60 price all the way down to $20.

Below is a list of highlights compiled by Joystiq:

Guitar Hero: World Tour (Band Kit) – $90 [360/Wii]

Bionic Commando – $20 [PS3/360]

Wheelman – $20 [PS3/360]

Tom Clancy’s HAWX – $20 [PS3/360]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - $20 [PS3/360]

Prince of Persia – $20 [PS3/360]

Tom Clancy’s EndWar – $20 [PS3/360]

Cooking Mama: World Kitchen – $20 [Wii]

House of the Dead 2 and 3 Returns - $20 [Wii]

This sale apparantly runs through August 2nd with the full list of discounted games here.

Below is the list. This is applicable to PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii versions of the game:

Ferret/Metal Blade Track Pack (Free) – May 7

• The Devil Wears Prada – "Dez Moines"
• Chimaira – "Broken Glass"
• Unearth – "Grave of Opportunity"

Pop Rock Track Pack ($5.50 / 440 MS Points) – May 14

• P!nk – "So What"
• OneRepublic – "Stop and Stare"
• Angels & Airwaves – "Everything’s Magic"

European Track Pack Vol. 5 ($5.50 / 440 MS Points) – May 21

• In Flames – "Disconnected"
• Housse de Racket – "Oh Yeah!"
• Cody ChesnuTT – "Look Good in Leather"

The bundles will be available for PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. Wii owners don’t get bundles and will have to buy songs individually.

Sony has gone ahead and updated their Playstation Network service with a whole slew of addons, videos, and pretty much every other piece of virtual content you could think of, well, besides games.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour get an updated song list like always along with a bunch of add-on packs for games like FEAR 2 and LittleBigPlanet.

Hit the break for the full update courtesy of Joystiq:

Add-on Content

• PixelJunk Eden Encore ($5.99)
• Buzz! Quiz TV US Sports pack ($7.99)
• LittleBigPlanet Monkey King costume (free)
• FEAR 2 Toy Soldiers map pack (free)
• Magic Ball Wicked Witches booster pack ($2.99)
• Midnight Club LA South Central vehicle pack ($2.99)
• Sonic Unleashed Spagonia Adventure pack ($2.99)
• Sonic Unleashed Chun-nan Adventure pack ($2.99)
• 3x Valkyria Chronicles add-on packs ($4.99 each)
• WWE SvR 2009 roster update 2 ($4.99)
• WWE SvR 2009 roster update 3 (free)
• Rock Band DLC (continued)
• Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (continued)

Rock Band DLC

Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy ($19.99)

• “Chinese Democracy” ($1.99)
• “Better” ($1.99)
• “Street of Dreams” ($1.99)
• “If the World” ($1.99)
• “There Was a Time” ($1.99)
• “Catcher in the Rye” ($1.99)
• “Scraped” ($1.99)
• “Riad N’ the Bedouins” ($1.99)
• “Sorry” ($1.99)
• “I.R.S.” ($1.99)
• “Madagascar” ($1.99)
• “This I Love” ($1.99)
• “Prostitute” ($1.99)

Guitar Hero World Tour DLC

Steely Dan pack ($5.49)

• “Bodhisattva” ($1.99)
• “Black Friday” ($1.99)
• “Kid Charlemagne” ($1.99)

Individual Songs

• “New Slang” by The Shins (£1.59)

Videos

• PixelJunk Eden Encore trailer
• Split/Second announcement trailer
• Stormrise launch trailer
• Virtua Tennis 2009 developer diary
• Wheelman launch trailer
• Bedtime Stories featurette
• Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatball trailer

Themes and Wallpapers

• PixelJunk Eden Encore theme
• Rag Doll Kung Fu theme
• Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3 theme
• FEAR 2 theme ($0.99)
• University of Arkansas theme ($1.99)
• University of Nebraska theme ($1.99)
• PixelJunk Eden Encore wallpaper
• 3x Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3 wallpapers

PSP Content

No new releases

Quite a few bands will make their music available next month, including the likes of Nirvana and Motorhead, as well as ’70s rock band Steely Dan.

As expected, each song costs 160 points ($2) and bundles can be bought for 440 points ($5.50) each.

The Pixies Pack – April 2

• "Debaser"
• "Monkey Gone to Heaven"
• "The Sad Punk"

Silversun Pickups Pack – April 9

• "Panic Switch"
• "It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone"
• "Well Thought Out Twinkles"

Steely Dan Pack – April 16

• "Black Friday"
• "Kid Charlemagne"
• "Bodhisattva"

Motorhead Pack – April 23

• "Jailbait (New Guitar Hero Re-record)"
• "Love Me Like a Reptile (New Guitar Hero Re-record)"
• "Iron Fist (New Guitar Hero Re-record)"

Nirvana Pack 2 – April 30

• "Very Ape"
• "Sappy"
• "Stay Away"

The PC and Mac editions will feature the same content found in the already available console versions. This includes the 86 included tracks, music studio and support for full band gameplay. However, no mention was made of downloadable content.

Guitar Hero games are already available on PC and Mac – Guitar Hero 3 and Aerosmith. I still don’t see how PC gamers would want to play this on a small screen with friends and still enjoy it.

Set for release on March 12, the Rise Against Track pack will premiere “Death Blossoms”, along with “Audience of One” and “Ready to Fall” from their previous albums.

The track pack will go for the usual price of 440 Microsoft points ($5.50), with individual tracks for 160 points ($2) each. More DLC is headed our way this month.

This month sees the introduction of three different packs, with music from Jimi Hendrix and Queen. European bands make up the other two packs, with music from The Rasmus, Within Temptation and Die Toten Hosen. Finally, a James Bond-themed single will be released.

As usual, each pack will sell for 440 Microsoft points ($5.50) and individual songs for 160 Microsoft points ($2).

European Track Pack Vol. 3 – March 5

• The Ramsus – "In the Shadows"
• Vanilla Sky – "Break It Out"
• Les Rita Mitsouko – "C’est Comme Ca"

European Track Pack Vol. 4 – March 19

• Within Temptation – "What Have You Done"
• Die Toten Hosen – "Hier Kommt Alex"
• M-Clan – "Carolina"

Jimi Hendrix Track Pack Vol. 2 – March 19

• Jimi Hendrix – "Freedom"
• Jimi Hendrix – "Angel"
• Jimi Hendrix – "Foxey Lady (Live, Woodstock 1969)"

Queen Track Pack – March 26

• Queen – "We Are The Champions"
• Queen – "Fat Bottomed Girls"
• Queen – "C-lebrity"

James Bond Theme Song – March 26

• "A new recording of the classic James Bond theme song."

Michael Phelps, 8 time Olympic Gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics (as if you didn’t know that), smokin’ bongs, A-Rod, the worlds highest paid athelete, takin’ steroids. What next?

Apparently nothing on Activisions end, who has recently announced they will not follow suit of companies like Kelloggs in dropping endorsement deals for the two atheletes. And if you didn’t know both Michael Phelps and A-Rod star in Activision’s commercials for Guitar Hero: World Tour.

However, Activision make it known that the current ad campaign, which includes the above commercial, is coming to an end soon. Way to sneak outta’ there, Activision.

Read (NY Daily News)

It’ll set you back 1520 Microsoft Points ($18.99 real world money) but make sure you check out what you’ve already downloaded, because three of the tracks from the album (”Shock of the Lightning”, “Bag it Up” and “Waiting for the Rapture”) were available for download in November. If you download the tracks individually they’re 160 MS points ($2). Here’s the full track list:

“Bag It Up”
“The Turning”
“Waiting for the Rapture”
“The Shock of the Lightning”
“I’m Outta Time”
“(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady”
“Falling Down”
“To Be Where There’s Life”
“Ain’t Got Nothin’”
“The Nature of Reality”
“Soldier On”

Quit your yapping, Guitar Hero and Rock Band fanboys, as NPD has revealed the most popular band – in terms of units sold, anyway. The undisputed winner is Guitar Hero World Tour, which has sold 3.4 million units in North America alone; double that of Rock Band 2. In fact, World Tour sold nearly 1 million units in November alone.

Before Rock Band fans start flame wars on forums, it can be pointed out that the Guitar Hero is a better known brand than Rock Band, though the latter is generally received better by critics (and also has the largest DLC library). World Tour also went on sale on all platforms – PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 – on October 26, whereas Rock Band 2 hit the Xbox 360 on September 14, the PS3 October 19 and the PS2 and Wii on December 18. What this means is that NPD is reporting only about two weeks worth of sales on the latter two platforms which have the largest install bases in the region.

Whatever the case may be – both games are stupidly fun and awesome to play while having friends over. It’s just deciding which poison to take for the gamers.

You can grab the songs for free during the first week of their availability. However, after February 5, the songs will be priced at 320 Microsoft points ($3.99) as a pack; they can also be bought individually for $2 each.

As expected, the songs can be bought individually for 160 Microsoft points ($2), with the Guitar Hero songs available in a pack for 440 points ($5.50).

While Xbox 360 gamers can get the songs now, PS3 users will have to wait till January 8, 2009, as Sony is taking a seasonal two-week break from updating the PlayStation Store.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Activision recently lowered the price on one of it’s biggest releases of the year, Call of Duty: World at War. Well, it looks like some analysts are speculating that the mega-publisher may have started a new trend; decrease the price on major releases.

Following Call of Duty’s price reduction, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia followed suit. Although, if you weren’t born yesterday, you know that past-gen titles were always priced at $50, it wasn’t until this generation of consoles that brought about the $60 price point.

While this is great news that could potentially save gamers $10 here-and-there, let’s just hope that maybe this will entice enough studios to drop the prices on all of their games effectively bringing back the $50 price point.

Read (1UP)

“The biggest concern around Guitar Hero has to be the fact that Guitar Hero World Tour (12 SKUs) declined 48% in units and 31% in dollars from Guitar Hero III (6 SKUs) on a year-over-year basis. This will fuel concerns that the genre is past its peak,” said UBS analyst Ben Schachter. “With Activision and others sure to bring new innovation to the genre next year we can’t count it out, but it almost certainly won’t be the growth driver it has been over the past two years.”

Let’s hope things get better for both Activision and EA, seeing as how the global economic crisis is going.

The abovementioned bundle packs the game itself and a wireless guitar controller for $85. The offer is applicable to this bundle only and not the “full band kit” which contains the game, guitar, drums and microphone.

Many are speculating that the free songs are most likely to be from existing DLC.

Dubbed the European Track Pack volume 1, the following songs are available starting today for 160 Microsoft points ($2) a piece, or 3 song packs for 440 points ($5.50).

European Track Pack Vol. 1 – December 11
Sportfreunde Stiller (German) – “‘54, ‘74, ‘90, 2010″
Negrita (Italian) – “Mama Mae”
BB Brunes (French) – “Dis Moi”

European Track Pack Vol. 2 – “Later This Month”
Backyard Babies (Swedish) – “Degenerated”
Fito Y Fitipaldis (Spanish) – “Por La Boca Vive El Pez”
Di-Rect (Dutch) – “Johnny”

“Currently, we expect [World Tour] unit sales to decline by more than 50 percent series-over-series for November. This is coming off the October month where series-over-series units declined by more than 60 percent,” said Divinich.

Divinich further pointed out sub-retail prices of Guitar Hero World Tour – the fourth game in the series – as an indication that “demand and supply are currently in equilibrium.” While he believes the series has reached its peak, Divinich notes that it doesn’t mean the whole plastic guitar-playing fad will fade away – just the rapid expansion of its growth has burned out.

“We expect Guitar Hero and Rock Band releases for the next 10 years as they will always have a large and loyal market base, just as [Dance Dance Revolution] is still today a very profitable franchise for Konami, even though that series reached its peak a long time ago,” he explained.

Have you had enough with those cheap plastic drum pedals that come stock with your favorite band game, be it Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero: World Tour? Well, Nyko has you covered recently announcing the launch of it’s $20 “Metal Pedal”.

While it won’t hit store shelves until January 2009, Nyko’s Metal Pedal will be compatible with Rock Band 1 and 2 along with Guitar Hero: World Tour. Let’s just hope this will solve the problems of those notoriously easy to break plastic pedals the game(s) come with.

The first pack in question will feature three Smashing Pumpkins songs: “1979″, “Everlasting Gaze” and “G.L.O.W.” The second pack is due out on December 11, containing three songs from Nirvana – “Negative Creep”, “You Know You’re Right” and “Sliver”. The Eagles will constitute the third pack on December 18: “Frail Grasp on the Big Picture”, “Life in the Fast Lane” and “One of These Nights”.

Finally, on December 23, a Reggae Rock pack will be available for free: “Jimi” by Slightly Stoopid, “Your Face” by Pepper and “Sacrifice” by Expendables.