Two gamer favorites - Guitar Hero and Rock Band – will release new games this month. We decided to dig into the conversations around these two games and see what the buzz is about

In the month of July, Guitar Hero was discussed in 132 blogs in 851 posts, while Rock Band chatter resides with 241 blogs in 2032 posts. Off the bat, we can see that Rock Band is talked about by more blogs, but even more interesting, it's generating more than double the posts, yielding a much larger conversation. But is that a good thing? Read on...

For the conversation query "Guitar Hero", Guitar Hero III is currently the hottest topic with 24% of the overall conversations referencing it – PlayStation was mentioned 22%, Activision 28% and Xbox360 18%. Influencers on the topic of Guitar Hero also mentioned Wii in 21% of the conversations.

For the query around "Rock Band", we found some similar references - PlayStation3 was discussed by 26% of the posts, while Xbox360 was discussed in 25%. However, when looking at a comparison between Rock Band and Guitar Hero, influencers for Guitar Hero are discussing the Wii much more – 21% for Guitar Hero, 2% for Rock Band. Seems like Guitar Hero fans prefer the Wii more than Rock Band fanatics.

Who are the influencers?

For "Guitar Hero", Kotaku is the most influential blog, with Joystiq and NintendoWiiFanboy rounding out the top 3. The most influential post was by Gizmodo on July 18, which talked about the new Starpex guitar for the game. The topic of World Tour (the upcoming Guitar Hero IV) is generating a lot of buzz, especially around the artists included on the playlist, like Jimi Hendrix and Metallica.

For "Rock Band", Engadget was the most influential blog, with PS3Fanboy and Joystiq rounding out the top 3. The most influential post was also from Engadget on July 16, which, like the most influential for Guitar Hero, looked at controllers. It appears bloggers are very impatient for the cymbal plug-in from Mad Katz Development, as well as the Ion “drum rocker” kit that turns game drums into a working set. Influencers like QuickJump also are buzzing around the news from E3 that the Xbox360 version of Guitar Hero IV is compatible with Rock Band instruments, with many wondering - why only the XBox?

A post from July 22 on Matt Brett’s blog discusses some of the issues that fans have with the two games – as you may have guessed, it’s around the controllers. While Rock Band is more widely discussed among influential blogs, there is a reason, and it's not a positive one. As Matt states, and many others echo, the current Rock Band kit has technical issues – it’s light and loud. Matt, along with many of his fellow gaming bloggers, wonders if he should make the switch to Guitar Hero. Of course, true to their passion, most gamers will purchase both.