Rocksmith asks you to truly pit your guitar god skills in a more realistic fashion than those traditionally offered by rhythm video games in the past.   

Both RockBand and Guitar Hero had you wielding plastic imitation guitars with colourful buttons. Great fun, but RockSmith asks you to plug in a real guitar and learn a bit along the way.  And, as publisher Ubisoft has just announced a new study by Research Strategy Group has found that Rocksmith is the fastest way to learn how to play the guitar. The study was conducted with hundreds of participants across the United States of America.

The new research supports earlier findings from a consumer survey by Toluna Group that reported 95% of Rocksmith players say it improved their guitar skills.

“We’re thrilled with the results,” said Geoffroy Sardin, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at Ubisoft EMEA.  “These studies confirm our view that Rocksmith is a huge success at teaching players real guitar skills that are highly effective, enjoyable and will last them a lifetime.”

Ubisoft also revealed that Rocksmith has sold 1.4 million copies worldwide since its initial release in October 2011. An additional 3 million songs have been downloaded from the title’s library of 143 DLC tracks. Altogether, players have played an estimated 112 billion notes and developed an estimated 1.6 million blisters on their fingers.

Ubisoft is also priming press for some major RockSmith announcements at the forthcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in LA next week..