We kinda knew about it already, but it now seems official that developer Vicarious Visions is working on an external peripheral for their adaptation of Guitar Hero on the Nintendo DS, rather than relying on touch screen controls.
Games Are Fun was in attendance at this year's Austin Game Developers Conference, and caught up with Vicarious design manager Adrian Earle, who spilled the beans on Vicarious's port of the acclaimed music franchise. In addition to the horrible decision to build a peripheral for a portable device, Vicarious plans on leaving much of the game's visuals as-is, making them two-for-two in a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that may prove problematic when moving an established console title to an entirely new platform.
We'll give Vicarious Visions the benefit of the doubt, and assume the decision to ignore the touch screen was to avoid comparisons to Jam Sessions. Still, here's hoping Vicarious will let us rock out and still fit the darn thing in our pocket.