A new iteration of Guitar Hero is coming to an arcade, bar or movie theater near you.  Activision is working closely with Raw Thrills, creators of Big Buck Hunter and Konami, yes that Konami.  Even though they are competing, if you want to call it that, in the rhythm game genre they have joined forces to bring you an arcade version of Guitar Hero.  Konami actually approached Activision with the idea.

“Basically, Konami approached us with the deal,” said Eloff. “It shocked the hell out of me. [laughs] I was thrilled. The thing with ‘Guitar Hero’ that’s so frightening is there’s so much licensing [music, patents] associated with it. We’re not set up to do all that. When Konami came to us, asking us if we wanted to develop ‘Guitar Hero,’ we felt like this was a perfect symbiotic relationship.”

Guitar Hero Arcade will be based on Guitar Hero III with a few tweaks.  There will be less character customization to streamline the game.  Owners of the arcade machines will be able to download tracks just like their console counterpart, so the next time you see one of these machines and you want some DLC to play, just tell your bartender to download it for you.  The machines will have a pre-production run by the end of the year and will be in full production beginning in January.  The demand has been very high, they have seen more pre-orders of this machine than any other.

[Via MTV Multiplayer]