I always sort of thought Guitar Hero was a stupid concept until I was bored one day in Best Buy and picked it up and realized how fun the game was. When Rock Band came out the drums had me running to buy the game the day it came out. It didn’t take long for me to realize the weakest link in the PS3 Rock Band bundle was the guitar, which broke about 3 days into playing. Now it only strums one way and you can’t activate Star Power/Overdrive to save my sucky friends when they punk out.

Peak Products has announced the Starpex guitar controller for the PS2 and PS3, and it is way sweet. Peak says that the controller is actually built by a leading guitar maker and the thing is made form real wood. Features of the Starpex include full Guitar Hero and Rock Band functionality with a Star Power/Overdrive button and a tilt sensor for the traditionalists.

No one can deny the popularity of the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero is so popular that it has spawned an ecosystem of aftermarket controllers specifically for the game and even copycat products like Rock Band.

Today marks the launch of the latest version of Guitar Hero called Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. This is the first Guitar Hero game to be built around one band. Activision says that Aerosmith even re-mastered some of the tracks digitally for the game.