The hit against the otherwise lauded Rock Band franchise has been that (with the exception of the drum kit) it doesn't teach you how to play an instrument. The big news this year is that Rock Band 3 has real instruments and can be used to transfer video gaming skills to real world instrumental proficiency.
This method of learning songs by numbers and colors has been used in pre-school games for decades. Even before everything went electric in the kid's market, I remember learning "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" by matching the colors on the page to the metal bars on my toy xylophone.
The two octave keyboard is very similar. On pro-enabled games you'll be challenged to play real notes, not just the red, yellow, blue buttons in previous games. It is challenging, but fun; much less judgmental and intimidating than music lessons.
There will be two versions of the pro-style guitar. The one on the market now has a button for every note on every fret of the guitar. It makes it possible to learn the fingering, without going through the painful callous building that always turned me away from the real thing. Let me learn the layout, and then if I get that far, I'll get "blisters on my fingers".
The song list is fun - the Doors and Hendrix are here - but the real story is the new (and optional) pro-mode. I think parents will be a lot less reluctant to let their kids spend time with Rock Band now that it actually can serve as a gateway to learning.
