Activision and Logitech have announced a partnership where Logitech will create “premium” instrument controllers for Guitar Hero: World Tour. The press release isn’t very clear, but we take that to mean that Logitech will be making nicer, more beautiful and more expensive versions of the stock Guitar Hero guitars for the PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii. .

The new gear will be fully compatible with World Tour. This is probably good news for fans of GH since Logitech makes quality stuff. Soon you’ll be rocking a far better ax then you rock now.

When the Wii game console could only play media on external discs the issue of storage was not a problem, but now that owners can download, store and play games online the issue of storage, as with competitor consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, has suddenly become an issue.

Sure you can store some data onto SD cards and swap things in and out of 512MB of internal Wii storage, but that capacity is quickly becoming inadequate and is putting a damper on those wanting to download a lot of games not to mention the ability for Nintendo to sell more games online.

Music games are huge right now and the popularity of the games has music labels and bands rushing to get their tracks into games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Another big market for music games is for aftermarket controllers to replace the generally junky ones that ship with titles like Rock Band.

Perhaps the coolest guitar controller ever for the PS2 and PS3 consoles has been announced by Peak Products. The controller is called the Starpex and it offers complete functionality in both Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The Starpex is made from real wood by a leading maker of real guitars and has lots of optimization for serious gaming.

Logitech, besides announcing a wireless Wii keyboard, also unveiled today a force feedback steering wheel for the PlayStation 3. It is called the Logitech Driving Force Wireless and it prices around $100.

The Logitech Driving Force Wireless wheel makes use of force feedback, which “creates directionally precise, tactile feedback that accurately simulates forces experienced in the game.” This wheel is also wireless, making use of a USB receiver to connect to the PS3.

Sony just announced that Playstation Network users will now have the ability to rent and buy movies and TV shows. They aren’t wasting any time either. The service gets switched on TONIGHT. And it’s more then just bland Sony content, with content from Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner, and Funimation. TV pricing starts at $1.99, while movies will cost $9.99 – $14.99, with rentals costing $2.99 – $5.99. The videos can even be downloaded to your PS3 and watched on multiple PSPs. Video is available in both SD and HD. Pretty nice!

Forget the 40GB PS3 model. It’s being pushed aside and will be collecting dust in September. It will be replaced by another version thanks to Sony’s “Gentlemen, we can rebuild it” bionic console attitude. The 80GB model is back. It’s being called the Core Pack and has “the same functionality” as the 40GB model, with double the storage for the same price of $399. We think that means no backwards compatibility. This should make PS3 fans very happy.

Microsoft announced at E3 today that along with a complete UI update coming to the Xbox 360, they will also be offering streaming movies via Netflix through the game console and Xbox Live. We had heard Netflix express interest in this partnership earlier this year and Microsoft says it will come to fruition in “late fall”. The new feature will require users to be subscribers to Netflix and manage their queue from their computer much like they do now, but will add the ability to stream and view the movies through the Xbox 360 game console. To make this even better, any Xbox Live Gold subscribers will get the service for no additional charge.

Basically this means that owners of an Xbox 360 are getting a brand new interface and all the features of a Roku box (Netflix set-top box retailing for $100) for no additional charges, aside the Live subscription fee that any true Xbox fan is paying anyway.

If your home theater is anything like mine you have a HD satellite box, PS3, Wii, Xbox and a few other items all trying to connect to the two available HDMI ports and other connectors on my TV. Then there is the problem of all the wires, which my wife seems to complain about with far too much frequency.

Belkin has a device that will go on sale in late October that will take care of both these problems called the FlyWire. The FlyWire comes in two versions with the normal FlyWire coming in October and the FlyWire R1 coming in Q1 2009.

According to the Sony Playstation blog, the company has released firmware version 2.41 for the Playstation 3 which is expected to be a smoother update than the 2.40 version they released last week and had to pull shortly after. Apparently some folks who installed the 2.40 version experienced problems getting to the XMB when booting up and were stuck with a bricked console, at least temporarily.

We had heard that Sony would get a fix for the 2.40 firmware out sometime this week and their blog entry late last night said …

The latest firmware 2.40 put out just Tuesday for the Sony Playstation 3 was apparently pulled shortly after its release due to multiple reported problems caused by the update. If you’ve already gotten the update and things are working fine you are one of the lucky ones, otherwise if you seem to be faced with a bricked console you’ll need to be getting in touch with Sony support or possibly trying to fix it yourself.

Sony confirmed Wednesday that they had official pulled the available update within an hour after its release due to the reported problems, which they say were experienced by a “limited” number of PS3 gamers. The most common problem appears to be that the console gets “stuck” when booting and doesn’t get past that “wave” background display, never reaching the XMB. Some argue that formatting the PS3 hard disk will fix the problem which you can attempt, but at your own risk.

While most of you are still addicted to the original Rock Band, Harmonix is already looking toward the future at what else they can put in your home. That’s why they’re getting official with Rock Band 2 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Xbox 360 will be launching in September and the PS3 version will follow later in the year. Of course, with a new Rock Band, you’ll be getting new instruments, like this Fender Stratocaster.

Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to use your current gear if you have it all decked out in stickers and such, or if you want to save a few bucks. Looks like you’ll also be able to carry over all your downloaded content as well as being able to download and play new tracks on Rock Band 1 once Rock Band 2 is available.

Sony has released an update to it’s corporate strategy through 2010. It talks about initiatives to move Sony from recovery to the “leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment.” The most welcome short term news is that Sony will have a movie download service available to US PlayStation 3 owners this summer.

Japan and Europe will have to wait until later for once. More details should be coming “next month,” probably at E3. As far as Sony’s gaming business, they expect it to be profitable by March 2009, the end of this fiscal year. There you go, summer. You won’t have to wait as long as you thought.

For those of you who have been doing their best to play bass on Guitar Hero or Rock Band, this is what you want. The other guitars aren’t bass guitars. We told you about Ant Commano’s Double Range Guitar in May.

Now they’ve released this wireless PS2/PS3 bass guitar as they actually care about the bass player. You still won’t be able to double-strum using two fingers like other versions, but it’s a nice looking bass that you can have for $69. With all the money you’ve invested in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, maybe it’s time to buy the real deal?

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Few things get fans of video games salivating like the words exclusive limited edition. The idea of a limited edition game gets even more impressive when you add in a popular game title and some very cool extras that you won’t get anywhere else.

That is exactly what Amazon.com is offering fans of the Fallout game franchise. The latest version of the game called Fallout 3 is available for pre-order on Amazon.com in an exclusive and limited edition version called Fallout 3 Survival Edition.