[RyanCahoon]

The system demonstrated on Engineering TV isn't from National Instruments, but it includes NI components. Lots of salesperson speak, but includes some useful tips. If you're looking for a build-your-own approach, many amateur individuals have posted how they made their own on YouTube, as was suggested (a couple were featured on HackedGadgets).

The basic idea isn't too far off from the autonomous programming challenge in FIRST this year. Since the objective of Guitar Hero and other similar games is to press the corresponding buttons when colored markers pass certain points on the screen, the systems typically work by running vision algorithms on those particular portions of the screen. Since each marker is uniquely colored, and is fairly high contrast, algorithms can be written to detect when a marker is passing. From there, it's just an issue of tuning the system to near enough real-time performance that the system can press the buttons on the game controller at the correct time. There are many variations as to how the game controller is actuated (pneumatic and electric solenoids, servos, hacking open the controller and electrically interfacing with the game system) and how the vision system receives the image (whether through a camera or being plugged directly into the game console's video out signal), but the concept is still essentially the same.

Good luck, sounds like a fun off season project.
--Ryan