Nyko introduces first third-party Wii guitar

by JC Fletcher { Jan 8th 2008 at 10:30AM }

Nyko showed off some new accessories for the Wii and other systems (but most importantly the Wii) at the CES trade show. The company offered some more concrete information about the release of their Wireless Nunchuck, specifying a Q1 2008 release window and $30 price point for this product.

Their other Wii peripheral is something that fills a very important need in the Wii accessory lineup: a standalone Guitar Hero III controller. The Nyko Frontman Wireless Guitar is a wireless (obviously) controller styled after the Fender Telecaster. This guitar should be out in March or April -- a few months and fifty dollars are the only things between you and rocking out with a second player. Unless Activision beats them to the punch with their own standalone guitars, in which case some other amounts of time and money will be required.

Tags: ces08, guitar, guitar-hero-iii, guitarhero3, nunchuk, nyko

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rocky @ Jan 28th 2008 9:10PM

are you kiddin
of all the crappy guitars they could reproduce
they went with the tele
and that is fuckin awesome

shibshabby @ Jan 29th 2008 12:52AM

The Activision guitar listed on the Toys R Us site has been pushed back yet again. Originally it was slated for November, then pushed to today (1/28), and now I see it's set for 2/26. If Nyko can get this out around the same time, I'll probably go with this anyway just because I'm sick of waiting for the actual guitar. How hard is it to pull the game CD out of the box and ship a standalone guitar that you've already created? Someone isn't thinking this through, and they already missed the Holiday shopping season because of it. Morons...

Kerio @ Jan 8th 2008 12:17PM

"$30 price point"
"fifty dollars"

indecision?

David Hinkle @ Jan 8th 2008 6:46PM

The $30 refers to the wireless nunchuk, not the guitar.

MBJ @ Jan 8th 2008 11:03AM

Toys R Us lists an Activision produced standalone guitar for $59.99 on 1/28: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2792427

danny. @ Jan 8th 2008 11:03AM

That looks a lot like my semi hollow tele... the wiimote in place of the f-hole. Just needs a pearl pick guard.

Ian @ Jan 8th 2008 11:15AM

You CAN rock out with two people now in Guitar Hero, the Wii controller alone works with the game.. it just looks funny..
But there's no strumming involved, so once you memorize the bottons, you could actually be faster on it than the guitar controller.

Jumbo @ Jan 8th 2008 12:57PM

guitar is 50.
nunchuck is 30.

also...

wtf are these guitars so expensive?

WiiFTW @ Jan 8th 2008 4:26PM

In case you haven't figured out so far...Accesories/Cables are FREE MONEY for companies, even more so than shitty (EA) games.

Microsoft: little to no profit (loss?) on the console

Wii/360/PS3 Controllers: about $50-$60 (free money)
Component/HDMI Cables: potentially upwards of $50 (Best Buy/Brick-and-Mortar stores especially)
Custom colored Wii stand: >$20 (for a piece of plastic)

Need I list all the pointless yet expensive iPod accessories? That's why these guitars are expensive. There's not really much good third-party stuff as far as controllers (take a look at 3rd party N64 controllers on eBay). If anything, one third-party might get it right, but there's not really enough competition to drive the price down.

Ghen @ Jan 8th 2008 4:26PM

Because they can.

Most people don't realize that the wiimote itself is the expensive part and wiring a plastic controller with buttons might cost $15 at most. ($3 for the wiring, $12 for the plastic)

They will basically try to make Wii guitars as much money as the all inclusive Xbox or Playstation ones because people in general are dumb. (not readers here, but the majority of GH3 owners).