There are several of us at Den Of Geek who are paid up Guitar Hero fanatics. These same people have been jealously casting their eyes over at our Stateside cousins (apart from, er, our American writers, who haven’t) who have been able to enjoy the wonderful-looking Rock Band for some time, now.

Rock Band, of course, is the natural extension of Guitar Hero, in that instead of just coming with a guitar peripheral, you also get a drumkit and a microphone as part of the game. So far so good.

But here’s the crunch. While the game has now had its UK released confirmed, as EA has announced a 23rd May debut for the Xbox 360 version (with Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 iterations promised during the summer), the pricing has caused uproar. Basically, given that EA is selling peripherals and the game separately, the bill to get all the instruments and the game comes in at just shy of £180. For a computer game. Contrasted with a price closer to £90 for the US equivalent, this has not gone down well.

If you want to read an hilarious justification of the price, which of course is due to VAT, slightly higher pricing of UK stuff and not at all about stiffing us, then check out this Eurogamer article.

In the meantime, UK gamers have a choice between saving up, or missing out. Bah.