MediaFile

Is it just me?

While at the MTV/Harmonix pavilion at E3 checking out the The Beatles “Rock Band” Game demo — a preview of one of the most anticipated games this year — all that I could think of was “South Park.” Or more precisely, the perplexity experienced by Stan’s dad in the episode where he discovers just how popular games like “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” are among the young.

The game, whose graphics and sound are crowd pleasers, will be a mammoth hit after folks like the ones in this video run out and buy it, further proof that the video game industry has branched out to those who might not have bought games before.

Check out the “South Park” clip…

Lastly – a shameless plug for efforts to preserve music education in schools. (Ok, its a LG ad too, but you get the point, right?)

Sort of a tough week to have Michael Phelps featured in one of your advertisements. Or Alex Rodriguez, for that matter. But what if you use both world famous athletes in your advertising? Or worse yet, what if you use them both in the same spot?

Then you’d know how Activision feels.

Starting last October, the video game maker launched a new TV advertising campaign for the release of Guitar Hero World Tour, the new installment of the mega-popular game. Here’s how they described the idea behind the campaign: “Paying tribute to the famous lip- and guitar-syncing scene that appeared in the popular film ‘Risky Business’, each ad will highlight different celebrities jamming on instruments from Guitar Hero World Tour to the song ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’, performed by Bob Seger.”

So who do you think Activision picked to feature in its first Risky Business jam session? Yep, A-Rod and Phelps… Normally that would seem a rock-solid choice for a marketer, but it’s all a bit awkward at the moment, what with all that drug stuff.

How odd is it that perhaps the most exciting story in network television is not about “Lost”, “Fringe” or some other edgy, expensive small-screen phenomenon, but instead, about a veteran night time talk show host moving to prime time?

According to reports, NBC is set to announce today that Jay Leno, who relinquishes his “Tonight Show” gig next May, will get a new show at 10 p.m. each night “in a format similar to “The Tonight Show.”

This news comes as last-place NBC tries to cut costs during the economic slowdown. It wants to streamline creative decision-making. I suppose you can’t streamline it any more than putting the same gab-fest on every weekday night to compete with everything from legal and espionage yarns to hospital dramas and time travel shows.

    The rise of casual video gaming may have grabbed the headlines over the past couple of years, but the more hardcore end of the market dominated at Europe’s biggest gaming convention in Leipzig last week.
    Apart from new iterations of popular karaoke-style games such as Activision‘s Guitar Hero, Electronic Arts‘ RockBand and Sony‘s SingStar, which arguably kick-started the trend of easy-to-play casual fare, the world’s biggest games publishers focused on products for their core audience.
    Upcoming release Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 was a case in point. Not only does the game involve sending dozens of types of futuristic military unit across apocalyptic landscapes, but EA was marketing it in part on the basis that one of the
actresses in it, Jenny McCarthy, is a former Playboy playmate of the year.
    Most publishers were playing it safe, focusing on sequels such as a new version of The Sims – the virtual doll’s house franchise which has sold over 100 million copies since launch in 200? — or movie tie-ins such as a game based on new James Bond film Quantum of Solace.
    True innovation was thin on the ground, at least on a whistle-stop tour view of the main publishers’ offerings. Ubisoft demoed a game in the same genre as Command and Conquer which could be fully voice-controlled — apparently a first for consoles — while Sony previewed LittleBigPlanet. This marries the hot theme of user-designed content (think YouTube or MySpace) to an age-old platforming mechanic, the basics of which that would be familiar to anyone who had played Nintendo‘s Mario games.
    Cute sack-doll characters jump over flames and on to rising platforms, but the novelty is that most of the game, from the characters’ outfits and personalities to the landscapes over which they clamber can be modified by players and shared online.
    But for two of the other most hotly awaited games of the season, there was no news, albeit for opposite reasons. EA’s Spore, in which players guide a lifeform in the Darwinian struggle from primaeval soup to interplanetary conflict, is due out on Sept. 4 and had already been presented in near-final form at other events, so did not get a spot in EA’s main presentation.
    World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the next installment of the online role-playing game that has over 10 million subscribers — was available to play in an early form, but it remained unclear when the final version would be on sale. A spokesman for Activision unit Blizzard could not even confirm it would definitely be out before Christmas.

    * Where do you think gaming is going in the run-up to this year’s holiday season? Were you at the Leipzig Games Convention? Tell us what you think below.

As the creator of video game hits “Dance Dance Revolution”  and “Karaoke Revolution,” Konami has proved its chops in music video games. But now the Japanese game developer is moving into “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” territory with rock music game “Rock Revolution.”

Reporter Jennifer Martinez tried out Konami’s E3 demo room to test the game and found crisp and colorful graphics — which were nearly identical to those of the two older rivals.

As in “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band”, “Rock Revolution” players follow color-coded notes streaming on a television screen to play a rock song and earn points if the song is played correctly.

Youtube video we wish existed: Sumner Redstone rocking out on “Rock Band” to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” or Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

In the meantime we can assume that Viacom’s octogenarian executive chairman is rockin’ today after the media conglomerate said its first quarter profit rose 33 percent on strong sales of the “Rock Band” video game and higher advertising revenue at MTV Networks. Revenue rose 15 percent to $3.1 billion, beating analysts’ estimate of $3 billion.

It gets even better in the Viacom executive suite, at least for today — its film “Iron Man” kicks off the summer blockbuster season to positive reviews, including that of tough Wall Street Journal reviewer Joe Morgenstern who said it had “exhilarating” action and “scintillating” comedy.