Ubisoft launches a real guitar game

DRM EMBEDDER Ubisoft is going to release a guitar based title that lets fanbois connect real guitars to their consoles.

Dubbed Rocksmith, the French games publisher's foray into the atrophied guitar genre is due for release in September this year and will set you back $200. That price ain't for no cheap ersatz plastic guitar covered in buttons. It is going to be a real guitar for budding Slash fans and herein lies Ubisoft's "unique selling point" as nervous marketeers like to call it.

We say nervous because the bottom fell out of the guitar games market last year with a big resounding bang. Activision pulled the plug on the once mighty Guitar Hero franchise and Electronic Arts' Rock Band is ticking over on fewer sales. But Ubisoft is insistent that its new guitar experience isn't a cheap party trick but a fully realised musical learning experience. The company hopes that will be enough to keep the punters coming back for more.

Hopeful franchise Rocksmith will come with a standard instrumental jack that lets you plug an electric guitar into an Xbox 360 or PS3 - now't for you Wii and PC fanbois. The game is apparently capable of learning how good you are at picking, plucking and strumming and adjusts its difficulty levels accordingly.

Ubisoft told the Hollywood Reporter that it is working on licence deals with bands and guitar manufacturer Gibson in the hope of bundling a well known brand guitar brand for its launch of Rocksmith.

"Guitar Hero is a party game. Rocksmith is a music experience," Ubisoft senior VP of marketing Tony Key told the Hollywood Reporter. µ