Rock Band is one of the most popular music games out there largely due to the fact that it has brought a lot of innovations to this very successful genre of games. Things like multi instrument games or weekly DLC (Downloadable Content) packs in the form of tracks you can play in the game would have never found their way into other music games.

The game, although underestimated by a lot of critics and analysts, has surpassed everybody's expectations and is now a serious contender to the current best selling music game - Guitar Hero. Among the big number of aces up Rock Band's sleeve is the fact that it has made contract with famous real life instrument manufacturers to produce peripherals for the game and its sequel, Rock Band 2 which has recently been released. 

One of the most popular peripheral manufacturers is Mad Catz, which produces some very interesting instruments for the popular game, like the bass guitar for the Xbox 360 version. The producer announced having just signed a multi-year licensing contract with Nintendo to produce peripherals for the Wii version of Rock Band and Rock Band 2.

The company also revealed that the first products which are part of this contract would be a portable drum kit and a bass guitar accessory. These will be available in the first part of 2009 in all territories except for Asia, where other producers can make music peripherals for the Nintendo Wii.

“We are thrilled to enter into this agreement with Nintendo,” said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. “Together we will provide Rock Band fans the opportunity to enhance their gameplay with Mad Catz’ premium instruments for Nintendo’s extremely popular Wii system.”

This is quite an interesting deal and is sure to make a lot of Wii “rockers” happy as the Mad Catz products are very good and are certain to enhance their experience, although their skills will be the same.