Problems with Guitar Hero drums? News

If you've read this morning's Guitar Hero World Tour review, then you already know how much we like the new RedOctane drums - but with the game now on sale across the pond, a few early adopters are reporting problems.

Across a range of posts on the official Guitar Hero and Activision forums, Kotaku uncovered posts from players whose drums were only registering soft hits, rather than hard ones (the drums are meant to be velocity-sensitive), while another Wii owner told the website he had to return three sets.

Elsewhere, despite Sony's claim a few months ago that the Rock Band 2 and GHWT instruments are cross-compatible, posters on the Rock Band forum claim their new PS3 drum-kits don't work with Rock Band 2. The situation is said to be fine on Xbox 360.

Following the drum posts, Activision and RedOctane have posted a range of customer support topics, advising players to check the batteries and other connections to make sure everything is firmly plugged in.

Guitar Hero World Tour's main competitor, Rock Band, experienced peripheral issues during its first few weeks on sale, with complaints of broken drum foot pedals and guitar strum bar issues, but these were fixed in later production runs.

However, it's worth pointing out that these incidents are pretty common after the launch of new gaming hardware, and may end up being a lot of fuss about nothing. We're contacting RedOctane's UK representatives for an update.