Guitar Hero: World Tour is due out this holiday season, but before you decide whether or not to spend a bucketload of cash on another Band game, we are here to show you what Rock Band’s competition has up its sleeve in the hardware department. We have already seen Activsion’s attempt at upstaging Rock Band’s drum kit, but their newest Guitar peripheral has been a mystery up until now. As you can see from the picture above, the GH team is shooting for a much more realistic visual style with their latest Axe, and some of its new features add a certain degree of realism as well.

The most promintent new feature on this guitar controller is the touch sensitive slider located right next to the regular fret buttons on the neck. This sensor will allow players to alter the sounds of sustained notes by sliding their fingers back and forth across five frets, and can also be used to hammer rapid fire notes during difficult portions of songs. There is also a new button located where the bridge would be (on a real guitar) which can be used to activate star power for those times when you don’t feel like flipping the guitar up like a real rockstar. That is how real musicians activate star power, right?

The slider is the seller for me personally, but do these new features do it for you?