Guitar Hero faces a Rock Band challenge. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Activision's Guitar Hero franchise helped to catapult the company past Electronic Arts in sales during the first half of this year according to the NPD Group. New versions of the game….which Activision acquired with the purchase of Red Octane last year….are due out this year. But this time…they'll face competition from a title called Rock Band….due out from Electronic Arts and MTV. Activision executive vice president Robin Kaminsky…

"Guitar Hero is a great game and I think people are really excited about being a rock legend playing guitar. We've got great new features, really takes advantage of the competitive aspect of why consumers play games, in terms of the battle mode. We've also got Slash, who is going to be in the game and is in a boss battle and has written music specifically for the game. So we're really excited about our game. I think the more attention that's brought to the genre, the more consumers will come in. And they're going to play the best game and I'm pretty convinced that will be Guitar Hero."

Among the new features….

"Two great new guitar forms in Les Paul and Kramer guitar forms and wireless. All of our guitars will be wireless this holiday."

In addition to versions for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, Guitar Hero III will also be available for the top selling Nintendo Wii console. With a guitar, Guitar Hero II for the 360 sells for about 90 dollars. The Rock Band rival will add microphones and drums into the video game mix. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.