Seemingly destined to the same fate of its ‘colleague’ Rock Band, which was released last year with a bothersome tag of peripheral problems, Guitar Hero World tour has its own share of post-launch sub-par peripheral performance. Case in point here, it’s the drums.

The game was released this weekend, and immediately afterwards, internet forums were drowned in complaints by users who had responsiveness issues with the drum kit. The most frequent such issues which were posted on game developer RedOctane’s forums are related to the drum kit’s red snare drum pad and the yellow cymbal. Players which have experienced the problems say that the affected control surfaces either misread or completely fail to register hits. Both sensors are to be found on the left side of the drum kit, so the problem is believed to be related either to improper wiring or shoddy quality control during the manufacturing process.

Some players have resorted to do-it-yourself fixes such applying masking tape over the sensor, or even busting open the kit and tinkering around, although the latter has the unfortunate side-effect of voiding the warranty on the controller and making the user ineligible for any official fix publisher Activision may implement. Nevertheless, if you wish to try this, these (over)enthusiasts have posted detailed instructions on how to do this over at the RedOctane boards.

Activision’s official response so far has been to deny the reality of the issue. Their official statement sounding a bit like this:

"We have learned that certain drum controllers manufactured for Guitar Hero World Tour have sensitivity issues, we believe that these controllers are limited to ones in the earlier manufacturing stages. While we believe that this was an isolated manufacturing issue, we are stepping our efforts to randomly test our drum controllers so customers can be assured they work properly. In the event any consumers do experience problems with their drum controllers associated with sensitivity issues, we are offering a drum tuning kit that will enable players to fully optimize their drums."

The drum tuning kit, however, will only be a solution if the problem is one of calibration, and not if the sensor itself is damaged, in which case Activision will most likely have to implement a repair and/or replacement program. Activision continued by saying that

"Our goal would be to immediately address any hardware issues Guitar Hero World Tour players have with the game. Consumers should visit the Activision Publishing customer support Web site at www.activision.com/ support website or call 310 255-2050 in the U.S. where a customer care representative will assist them. Activision is fully committed to the highest quality manufacturing standards, and to satisfying every Guitar Hero World Tour fan so they can enjoy the best musical gaming experience ever created."

The game (complete with peripherals) costs almost $200 and along with Rock Band 2 has been of this year’s most highly anticipated products. As was mentioned before, this sort of hardware trouble is inherent to this game genre, and there is most likely a silent majority for which the drums posed no problems. Let’s hope they’ll be solved in a timely fashion, so that we can all enjoy the game.