Music games have gone form an oddity to a smash hit genre that drives more music sales for some bands than their actual albums or digital downloads offer. Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have changed how music is sold and have drawn fans to bands that they might not have known of otherwise.

Guitar Hero is the father of the music game genre and still one of the most popular games around. In August, Logitech announced that it would be building a line of premium controllers for Guitar Hero and today Logitech officially unveiled the first of the premium line.

The controller is called the Logitech Wireless Guitar Control, Premiere Edition and works only with the PS2/PS3 console. The guitar is built more like a real guitar than a video game controller, or one of the plastic junkers music games ship with. The neck of the guitar is wood and the fingerboard is rosewood.

Under the fret buttons, Logitech uses the rubber dome technology that makes its line of keyboards so popular and responsive. The rubber dome technology makes the fret buttons quieter, which is a good thing for anyone who has had to cut a night of jamming short because someone was sleeping in the next room and the buttons were too loud.

In addition to the normal fret buttons, the Logitech controller also features a Touch-Sensitive Neck Slider that allows players to hit notes and score points without needing to strum. No wires will tie players down, the controller uses 2.4GHz technology promising a 30-foot range. The guitar itself is powered by a pair of AA batteries.

Logitech says the guitar will be available in December for $249.99, certainly not cheap. However, given the popularity of the game many will spend serious money on controllers to make things more realistic and enjoyable.