No Fix for Wii GH3 Sound Glitch Until 2008

Sorry, Wii rockers: you'll have to deal with mono sound on Guitar Hero III until "early" next year. That's the word from Activision, which won't have replacement game discs ready until after the holidays.

Guitar Hero III rockers on the Wii have been complaining for weeks of only getting mono sound from the game—kind of a bummer, considering that a big chunk of the fun in Guitar Hero is, well, the killer music. One fan of the game went so far as to perform an audio waveform analysis to prove that the songs for Wii version of the game (which is supposed to deliver music in Dolby ProLogic II surround sound) were outputting in mono only. The intro scenes and crowd noise managed to get the surround treatment, however, and no sound problems have been reported for the Xbox 360, PS3, or PS2 versions of the game.

Activision finally acknowledged the problem and just announced that it will distribute free replacement discs—but not until "early 2008." Let's hope "early" means January and not, say, March or April. In the meantime, if you're getting your favorite Wii gamer a copy of Guitar Hero III for the holidays, be aware that the strains of the Stones, Kiss, and Metallica will have about the same fidelity as a $20 kitchen radio, at least until the new year rolls around.

Related:
Wii GHIII's Crummy Mono Sound Being Fixed Via Replacement Discs [Kotaku]