New Guitar Hero every year

Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane says it plans to offer "one major release" of Guitar Hero every year from now on, backed up with regular content packs through online services, which will include new songs.

Guitar Hero III - due out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 at the end of the year - may also be offered with several new guitar options.

"We've got designs for different guitars, whether that's new shapes or new colours; we've got designs obviously for wireless, which we'll be releasing at the end of this year for all platforms; and then we're looking at really cool interesting finishes and different ideas that we can do with the guitar to make them a little bit more exciting, and in fact we're even looking at making some higher-end guitars that might be made out of real wood," RedOctane president and co-founder Kai Huang told Eurogamer in an interview published today.

He also defended the pricing of the first bundles, which appeared on Live Marketplace last week. "We think that they're priced competitively," he explained, "but certainly we listen to the fans and we take that feedback, and if that's something we'll need to evaluate we'll do that."

For more on all that, including the latest on getting PS2 guitars to work on PS3, check out the full Guitar Hero III interview.