I Gotta get Me One of Those........

So Like I was saying.. I'm a Guitar Hero Nerd. Luckily a few other million are too.
Having no musical ability whatsoever has never bothered me much, though one of my best friends in HS played Bass in a metal band and got incredibly hot chicks due to this talent. Well it finally looks like the talentless among us may get over as well:
Guitar Tragedy: Life Imitates Games Companies:Activision, Inc. Sony Corporation
It was truly odd. At Bill Gates' keynote speech, the show ended with what was supposed to be a cutting contest between Gates and the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, Robbie Bach. But when Bach was to start the competition, Kelly Law-Yone, a guitar-Hero "champion,” strode on stage and faked her way through “Welcome to the Jungle,” raising her fist to the sky in true rocker fashion. Peavey's Kiss designed RiffMaster guitar controller is made from a genuine Peavey guitar.

Then it was Gates' turn. His “ringer” was none other than Slash, the guy who actually played on Guns N' Roses' “Welcome to the Jungle." I know games such as Activision's "Guitar Hero" are off the charts, but they have led to an odd phenomenon: Not only are real guitar players competing against fake guitar players. Real guitar companies are now making fake guitars Yes, true “guitar heroes,” including Peavey and Gibson are now making fake guitars for gamers. And yesterday, I stood in the Peavey Booth, listening to a rocker-looking guy noodle his way through “Slow Ride,” a few bars of Cream and finally, the ultimate Guitar Hero anthem, “Welcome to the Jungle.” Geesh.

Peavey's RiffMaster guitar controllers are made from real maple with a rosewood fretboard, and come with 11 exclusive artwork designs, including Kiss, Skynyrd and the ever-popular Megadeath. Oddly enough, the Peavey representative told me these games had actually increased interest in real guitars among youngsters. At $500, it ought to increase interest in something. Gibson makes its own Les Paul guitar controller for Guitar Hero. But oddly enough, the only real nod to it in the Gibson tent was a Guitar Hero setup pushed way over to the side. The guitar wasn't even there and the representative told me point blank that if I wanted information, I'd have to go to gibson.com. Clearly, the real guitar players were the star of this show.

OK - $500 is a bit much for a contoller, but if this market crashes, I figure I'll scoop one up on ebay for 50% off.

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I'm long ATVI - It was actually one of those Warren Buffet type deals; I bought Guitar Hero for one of my son's birthday's. He hated it. He'd rather blast aliens in Halo than rock out to songs his dad listened to throughout his misspent youth. So the wife and thought 'what the hell" and started playing one night after the kids were in bed. Long story short; we became addicted to this game. When I say addicted, I'm talking every night we're jamming till 1:00 waking up next day all bleary eyed and stuff. The last time I played any video game with fervor was a few years ago on a release of Tiger Woods Golf by Electronic Arts. So naturally, I checked up on Activision and found a pretty decent company that was pulling back from a recent high. In Novemeber I bought at $19.50. A couple weeks later ATVI announced a merge with the Vivendi folks wh make World of Warcraft (WOW). The tender was set at $27.50 so the stock jumped nicely. This WOW is a pretty good business model as they have millions of people paying around $20 per month to play Dungeons and Dragons on their PC. Not my idea of a rockin' weekend, but who am I to judge. The stock recently made an all time high at $29.50 - I'm thinking those buyers above $27.50 were thinking there won't be enough shares at $27.50 and Vivendi would raise the tender. Maybe. Maybe not. The stock is back down to $27.50 and if the market keeps heading south it may fill the gap at $24. But I doubt it.

Disclosure: Long ATVI (no duh!)