The Guitar Hero: On Tour series is an expansion of the Guitar Hero series for the Nintendo DS portable console. The series is developed by Vicarious Visions and published by RedOctane and Activision. The game uses a "Guitar Grip" hardware unit that fits into the Game Boy Advance slot on the DS or DS Lite to recreate the experience of the console-based guitar controllers normally used with the game; this unit is incompatible with the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo 3DS due to the lack of the slot on the DSi hardware. The player uses fret buttons on the Grip while "strumming" using a stylus across the DS touchscreen to try to match notes as they scroll on the second screen in order to score points and complete each song.
There are three titles in the series: Guitar Hero: On Tour, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, and Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits. Each game features a setlist with more than 25 songs, most based on master recordings. The games utilize the DS's local wireless features to allow two players to compete against each other. Players can compete using different versions of the games, allowing the songs of each game to be shared during play. The songs chosen in the setlists of all three games have significantly less objectionable content than the ones in mainstream console Guitar Hero titles, making the On Tour series the first and only games in the series to be rated Everyone 10+ by the ESRB.[1][2][3]