Guitar Hero for actual guitar?

The picture has nothing to do with this, I saw the video below a few months ago and had totally forgot about it until I saw it on stumble upon today. Basically it's "Guitar Hero" on a real guitar. It promises to teach kids guitar and turn couch potatoes into guitar gods. So will it really catch on? Well that depends on a few factors: What system/OS will it be on? Will it work? Will people want to play it? And last but not least, can people afford it?

So in the video the guy plays it on a PC. Granted its not a Mac only(5% market share) so they have a few potential customers out there. But will it be available on Wii, Xbox and most importantly the future proof PS3. Think about it for a second, most kids and certainly most parents do not want the hassle of installing it on a computer and the playing it on one. Most kids and parents want the convenience of a plug and play game console.

Will it work? Well there have been many attempts in the past to try and digitize the guitar. To not only take a guitar note and turn it into digital audio, but to interpret that note for what it is. Usually when we play guitar we play more than one note. The program would have to sort out these notes. Just like a midi signal it would need to know how hard we played the note and for how long we played it. There has only ever been one company that has been successful at making guitar equipment to get even close to any of these goals and that is Roland. Problem is that after you have gone out and got that nice $1000 guitar, then you need to spend another $1300 on the Roland system. So I'm not sure how Disney is going to come out with this state of the art system at a price that will have the soccer moms lined up around the block.

Will people want it? Well that depends on the first two questions. If it will work on a game console, if it actually interprets the note correctly and if the price is right then of course people will want it. And even at a few hundred dollars it would be a better investment than guitar hero or rock band. Question is, how can they do all the above for a few hundred dollars? Maybe technology has made it possible but you still need a guitar and audio interface along with the game. A guitar or an audio interface can fetch a few hundred dollars by themselves. So I still not convinced that any company can make a decent attempt at this for under $1000. And at that price I don't see the soccer moms lining up.