Good news, Rock Band fans, the much anticipated (and repeatedly delayed) Fender Precision Bass guitar for Rock Band is going to ship later this month. This announcement means that the new Fender will be coming out a couple of months ahead of the new Beatles inspired guitars scheduled to be released in September of this year.

Bringing the Fender out now is definitely a good business move on Mad Catz's part. It'll be out early enough that it should have a few weeks to make some serious sales before any new competing guitars hit the market.

That's not all the Rock Band news we've got. We've also received word that Mad Catz just signed a contract with Microsoft that gives them the ability to, “manufacture, market and sell Xbox 360-branded wireless specialty videogame controllers.”

This means a whole lot of new specialty instruments coming on down the line, and it also opens up the potential for new peripheral devices for other Xbox games. The fact that Microsoft signed such a lucrative contract with Mad Catz says good things about the quality of the new Fender controller. We won't know for sure for a few weeks, but this is at least a good omen.