That’s right. The latest volume of Guitar Hero is nearly ready to hit the streets. So unpack your plastic guitar (We’re assuming you are sick of those old songs by now.) and get ready to rock. Guitar Hero 5 arrives on September 1st.

There are a bunch of features like the ability to play through sets with no players actively playing, so anyone to join in at any time. But you have some hard choices to make. The release date comes one week before The Beatles: Rock Band. Decisions, decisions.

We know that you’ve been counting down the days until The Beatles: Rock Band is released. You’ve been practicing your british accent and you’ve even formed your own band in anticipation, complete with a Yoko all ready to break you up. Well, get a hold of your mop-top. It’s now available for pre-order.

And there will be two custom guitars available for purchase along with the Special Edition bundle (the game itself, Höfner bass and Ludwig drums microphone and mike stand). The guitars are a Gretsch Duo-Jet and a Rickenbacker 325 which will retail for $99.00 each when the game arrives on September 9th.

MTV Games, Harmonix and EA have come forward with some info today just to tease you until the 09.09.09 launch. Apparently the Limited Edition Premium Bundle will include the game, a Höfner Bass, a microphone, microphone stand, some “additional special content” and… Beatles-inspired, Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums, with a pearl finish and vintage replica Beatles kick drum head.

The bundle is scheduled to launch worldwide this September, with US price of $249, Europeans will pay €199 and those in the UK will pay £179. As an added and lame bonus, North American and European fans who pre-order any version of the game will be eligible to join the The Beatles: Rock Band Pre-Order Club and “receive breaking news and access to exclusive game elements including art and behind-the-scenes footage directly from MTV Games and Harmonix.”

This guitar caught my eye right away. As far as guitar mods go, it’s pretty darn crazy. Crazier then the Atari-Hero. What kind of mind combines a Speak n’ Spell with a Rock Band guitar? This guy in the video below, that’s who.

It’s called the Speak n’ Spellbinder. The sounds from the Speak ‘n Spell are all mapped to the frets, strum button and even the whammy bar. In the video below, modder Aj Gannon never really loses his cool and starts rocking hardcore, much to our disappointment. If you can even rock out to such noise.

Now you can enjoy Rock Band while on the road to your next gig. That’s because the game is coming to the Sony PSP. To celebrate, Sony is releasing a limited edition Rock Band Unplugged PSP Entertainment Pack.

You get a piano black PSP-3000, a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and a PSN downloadable movie voucher for School of Rock. Very clever. Rock Band Unplugged will merge some key gameplay elements from the original Rock Band as well as its sequel, with a bunch of new songs and some features that are unique to the PSP. Like loneliness and isolation.

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.