is a music video game series produced by Konami. It is a rhythm game where the player uses a controller to simulate the playing of an electric guitar. The game consists of music predominantly from the rock music, rock and roll and J-pop genres. It is considered one of the most influential video games of all time, for having laid the foundations for popular guitar-based rhythm games, such as the Guitar Hero series. Working Designs attempted to bring Guitar Freaks PlayStation 2 games in the U.S., but patent problems with the guitar controller prevented the project from moving forward. is a drumming music video game series produced by Bemani, the musical division of Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. It first released in 1999 as an arcade game, then subsequently ported to the Sony PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2000 as a launch title. Subsequent mixes have been released approximately once a year. In 2010, a series XG was introduced, adding a floor tom, left cymbal and a left pedal to the cabinet setup. To focus on the new game, development ceased for the original version, with the last mix V8 released in 2011. The game can be linked to its guitar-version sibling Guitarfreaks, allowing for session play as long as they are from the same release. Earlier versions of the game could also be linked with Keyboardmania. From 7th mix onwards, the game has been linked to Konami's e-Amusement system, allowing for online competitive play. The most recent arcade version is GITADORA HIGH-VOLTAGE, which was released on April 21, 2021. History System 573 era (1999–2004) GuitarFreaks was released on February 16, 1999. It included a dozen of songs and uses the Bemani System 573 analog hardware, so called because it uses the analog audio output from a CD drive. DrumMania was released on July 10, 1999 along with GuitarFreaks 2ndMix. These versions included 26 and 33 songs, respectively, and could be linked together to play 14 common songs. Subsequent versions used digital hardware and featured larger song lists, eventually surpassing 120 songs. The GuitarFreaks version number continued having an increment of one compared to the equivalent DrumMania version until GuitarFreaks 11thMix and DrumMania 10thMix on April 22, 2004. GuitarFreaks 2ndMix was the last System 573 analog game, and DrumMania was the first System 573 digital game. Although the series saw 11 main arcade releases for the System 573, only the first