Can't afford Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour? Try Nintendo's alternative - Wii Music will be out in the US next month!

Wii Music was fully revealed at E3 2008 earlier this year to a mixed reception. Shigsy and M. Night Shamaylan got up on stage to make fools out of themselves with faux drums and flutes, prancing around like lunatics and rocking out to the Mario theme tune to the horror of thousands of on-lookers worldwide.

Wii Music only requires the Wii Remote and Nunchuk (and the Balance Board for a bass pedal in the drumming minigame) to control over 60 instruments and more than 50 songs of the licensed, classical and Nintendo varieties. You'll also be able to play instruments over songs, send them to your friends over WiiConnect24 and allow them to add their own beats to it.

Nintendo have confirmed that Wii Music will be seeing a release in North America shortly after Japan on October 20th. Europe is still lumped with a vague Q4 2008 release date - with any luck, that will change over the coming weeks...