Guitar Controllers Get Girly with Aly & AJ

PDP hopes to appeal to female gamers with two new feminine guitar game controllers aimed at wannabe teen pop stars.

Rock and roll is often characterized as a boy’s sport, but even from its earliest days (Wanda Jackson, anyone?) the girls have been showing they can keep up with the boys just fine, thank you very much. But the same can’t be said of the still nascent music video game market, where both games and accessories have catered strongly to the predominantly-male video game crowd. So Performance Designed Products (PDP) teams up with teen pop star sisters Aly & AJ to create two new guitar controllers aimed especially at female gamers.

One guitar features a traditional body style with a pink-and-brown look, while the other is a pink-and-purple heart shape. The controllers can be used with Wii and PS2 consoles (sorry, PS3 and Xbox rockrgrrls!) and are compatible with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. PDP says it tested the designs with several hundred girls between the ages of 8 and 17, who rated the guitars based on theior graphics, colors, fret inlay, and headstock designs. One guitar is aimed at tweens ages 8 to 12, while the other targets older girls. (We’ll let you guess which is which.)

The Aly & AJ guitars should hit retailers in October with a suggested price of $69.99 each.