Seven45 Studios no doubt think they have a winner on their hands, they have not only developed an alternative to Guitar Hero and Rock Band that uses a “real” guitar but they have also developed the actual hardware controller guitar to go with the game.

Power Gig: Rise of the Sixstring is set to position itself in a very dangerous position, gamers are going to find the actual strings and fretboard difficult to use and lets face it painful, meanwhile guitarists are going to probably find the game either unrealistic or annoying. People like me who have spent years playing guitar and finally have a selection of high end guitars are not going to enjoy playing a cheap piece of plastic masquerading as guitar. Let’s face it, is a gamer seriously going to be bothered changing a string if they break it? I doubt it, instead the controller will be put in the back of a cupboard somewhere and never touched again. On the other side of the coin strings in Australia are pretty expensive, in most high street music shops around $20 for a set of Ernie Ball or D’Addario’s, call me skeptical but I’m really not convinced I would want to restring a game controller.

Joystiq wrote “Power Gig won’t teach you how to read music, nor will it be able to teach you the nuances of playing a real instrument. According to Seven45, Power Gig isn’t meant to do that, nor will it ever.” which begs the question what is the point then? Yes it may be an introduction to the guitar, but lets be honest Guitar Hero has already turned more kids onto Guitar than probably anything else in the past few years so what is going to make someone buy this over an existing successful brand.

If one of these games was released that was aimed more at guitarists and allowed you somehow to use your own guitar (I’ve seen evidence of this in development) then to me you have a game with a point of difference from Guitar Hero and therefore a potential money maker, but will it make the kind of money a traditional game will make? I doubt it, the gaming industry is huge I would love to see the ratio of gamers to guitarists but I can imagine it is very one-sided.