Here's the Guitar Hero: World Tour video from the Wall Street Journal's D6 event earlier today, which sounded like one hell of a cool shindig. American Idol judge (and often-trainwreck) Paula Abdul selected a few lucky audience members to put hands on the game's band set along with skater Tony Hawk, and she didn't even think they played two songs instead of one.

I should totally get the WSJ's All Things Digital crew to plan my birthday party. Nice event, guys.

Video: Guitar Hero IV Demo - D6 Highlights [All Things Digital]

Activision is well aware that most of its customers are over 18 and plans to address their R-rated expectations, Activision chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick told the Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher at today's D6 event.

"We try to stick to violence against small animals," said Kotick, (hopefully) joking, when Swisher asked him about the in-game violence issue:

Most of our users are over 18, they go to R-rated movies and we need to to cater to that preference. We are a broad-based medium today and we must appeal to as many demographics as we can. Part of that demographic audience enjoys in-game violence, and that includes gratuitous violence.

Bobby Kotick, Chairman and CEO of Guitar Hero-Maker Activision - D6 Highlights [All Things Digital]

Sony's "climbing up the mountain," said Sony Corporation CEO Howard Stringer at The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital D6 event earlier today.

Stringer also admitted the PlayStation 3 had been "on life support for a while," but told the event attendees that things were looking rosy for the console now - promising a boost for the PS3 thanks to Grand Theft Auto IV and titles coming down the pipeline that he says will make good use of the PS3's processing power.

He also talked about how PS3 helped Sony win the Blu-ray war:

After Stringer credited the PS3's Blu-ray drive with the format war victory, the Journal's Walt Mossberg said to him, "I thought you you won that battle because you paid the studios more than the HD-DVD group did."

"We were not in the check-writing competition," Stringer told Mossberg, citing support from Disney and other studios.

Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and CEO, Sony - D6 Highlights [All Things Digital]