You know, I've been waiting for over a year since I first heard about Guitar Rising, a Guitar Hero style video game that you can play with a REAL guitar. It seems to be the holy grail of interactivity--if you win the game, you have ACTUAL SKILLS you can use in real life to play an instrument. But it never seems to come to fruition. As of this morning, Guitar Rising's web site still hasn't changed or been updated to give us any glimmer of hope that a release is forthcoming.

Well it seems someone has now beaten them to the punch: Disney. Yes, THAT Disney. Disney's Guitar Star will be directed towards tweens at first, but if you can really play it with any guitar, then I might just pick up a copy myself and plug in my own axe. The software with a bundled 3/4 length guitar will be about $200, and available starting summer '09, but at least its a start!

Now I DO wonder what Gibson thinks about this, in view of their patent portfolio that they are asserting against Activision and the court's recent claim construction in that case...

Either way, Disney has the money to take a license or defend a lawsuit, so hopefully this product will actually see the light of day!