Think of the AK box as an Ottoman for serious gamers. Gamers who love Rock Band, whose instruments need some tidying up. So, if you are sick of tripping over your plastic instruments, this is a great solution. The AK Rock Box Gaming and Storage Ottoman with Drum Lift.

It’s a leather ottoman that opens up and has storage for two guitars, a foot pedal, microphone, and drums. It also features a drum lift to raise the drums from storage with one-hand. Since you take the game so seriously, you should take your fake instruments seriously too.

That’s a lot of rockin’. I hope some of you are taking it easy now. As things stand right now, Rock Band has 614 songs available from 269 artists, 11 full albums, and a buttload of revenue. More revenue than all other games in 2008.

For those of you keeping score, we are talking $1 billion in total North American retail sales, with 40 million tracks sold. Plus Rock Band and Rock Band 2 have won 50 industry awards. Frankly I’m surprised you can’t all hear each other rocking all over the continent.

Rock Band is one of the most popular games available on the Xbox, PS3, and Wii. The game lets average game geeks and music fans live the life of a virtual rock star and even if you don’t like playing the game, it’s great fun to watch your friends make fools of themselves trying to sing, play guitar, and drum.

The problem with Guitar Hero and Rock Band is that people think they can actually play guitar. By people, I mean you. The Zivix Headliner is a real guitar that works with both games using special fingertip sensors. What this means for you?

Well, if you use this you may actually learn to play the guitar for real. Seriously, it has strings and everything, because you’re a big boy now. There’s no official release date for the Headliner yet, but they hope to have the guitar on store shelves sometime later this year.

Fans of both The Beatles and Rock Band have reason to get excited. Very excited. Are you sitting down? MTV Games and Harmonix have just announced a partnership with Apple Corps, Ltd. to bring the band’s music (and instruments) to the Rock Band universe.

The game will apparently premiere with a set of new hardware “modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career.” If you ceck out the site, there’s a holder page up with a launch date of September 9th, but as soon as we get more info, we’ll pass it on.

If you think about the early 1990’s music scene one of the most popular genres was Grunge and one of the biggest bands in the Grunge movement was Pearl Jam. The band’s debut album launched on August 27, 1991 and went on to sell 12 million copies.

The band and Harmonix announced today that along with the reissue of the debut album called Ten from Pearl Jam, the entire album would be coming to Rock Band as download content. The reissued album and Rock Band track pack will be available starting on March 24, 2009.

I have talked before about Rock Band and how much fun it is to play with a group of friends. I’m not the only Rock Band fan out there that likes to play the game. Popularity for the game is so high that there is a wealth of aftermarket controllers on the market for the Xbox and the PS3. You don’t see that many for the Wii though.

Mad Catz has announced that it will be changing that. The controller maker has signed an agreement with Nintendo that will allow it to build and market officially licensed Wii Rock Band controllers outside of Asia.

Here’s something for those who like to paint their faces while playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero, after a healthy argument over the merits of belonging to the KISS army. Even if you aren’t a KISS fan, this is a badass Rock Band and Guitar Hero compatible replica of Gene Simmons’ signature bass. It also features a bi-directional strum bar, ultra-responsive fret buttons, an analog whammy bar for $80. It will be released on Halloween. Demon boots and outlandishly long tongue clip-on not included.

If August came and went and you weren’t able to get your hands on the Rock Band Stage Kit for the Xbox 360, maker PDP promises that the strobe light and smoke machine kit will be available starting in at the end of the month. I’m a big fan of Rock Band, but I’m not sure I could look myself in the mirror if I actually used this thing. It’s just a little too geeky for me and I am a professional geek.

If you think you can look at your own reflection after rocking out with smoke and flashing lights in your own living room, the kit will set you back $99. PDP says this time the kit will be available on October 26. What you get for your C-note is a fog machine and a strobe light kit.

Apparently Harmonix has some interesting new features in store for RockBand.com. The site will be getting a complete overhaul with features sure to make any plastic instrument playing nerd wet himself a little. Some of the new features are an online photo creator for photo shoots with your Rock Band 2 band so you can use the pictures online.

Next, users can link these photos to real-world merchandising like posters, T-shirts, stickers for your band etc. If that isn’t geeky enough, and I’m sure it’s not for some, you can get action figures made from your band members “for about 70 bucks”. Looks like music games are no longer just about songs and fake instruments. Now they’re also about bringing fake bands into the real world where they can all annoy each other and realize that on a real instrument they suck.

The Rock Band Portable Drum Kit for Xbox 360 is a complete skins kit designed to travel with you and be played on almost any solid surface. Apparently the rubber pads can handle over a million strikes, but be careful what you lay these on. You don’t want to be banging away on expensive furniture. This is the perfect way to play if you don’t have room for the full kit. It only costs $59.99 and ships soon.

Rock Band has proven to be one of the most successful games in the music genre. This weekend the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band 2 launched and brought with it new accessories for the game. One of the coolest is a new drum kit from ION.

The ION Drum Rocker for the Xbox 360 is now available. The kit has an all-metal bass pedal and can have up to three cymbal pads attached to it for a more realistic drumming experience. The kit can also support a second bass pedal.

The craze of video game controller guitars for titles like Rock Band continues today with the shipment of Mad Catz first ever Rock Band bass guitar. It is known as Rock Band Fender Precision Bass Replica for Xbox 360 and it prices around $70.

The Fender Precision Bass from Mad Catz is its initial offering under license from Harmonix and MTV Games related to the Rock Band game. It is compatible with both the older title and the upcoming sequel Rock Band 2 and can be used, according to Mad Catz, to play both lead and bass guitar portions of a music track.

When most people think of gamers, they think of guys. While that is fairly accurate, many girls also enjoy playing video games. One the most popular genres with the ladies are music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The plain and masculine guitar controllers typically available with the games can be a problem for the ladies. Thankfully girly controllers are available in the aftermarket.

PDP has announced that new guitar controllers compatible with both Rock Band and Guitar Hero will be available in mid-October for $69.99 each. The controllers were designed with cooperation from teen rock star’s Aly & AJ. The guitar designed by Aly features a heart and cross bone print in pink and brown.

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.