Guitar Hero and Rock Band a little too, erm, “suburban” for you? Come next spring, you’ll have Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, which lets players get on the turntables and pretend-play some hip-hop.

Quincy Jones III, who produced records for Tupac Shakur, LL Cool J and Ice Cube, is on board for the project, and DJ equipment manufacturer Numark was enlisted to create the “Scratch Deck” controller. The game developer is 7 Studios, which has spent most of its recent years creating movie tie-ins such as Shrek the Third and Napoleon Dynamite: The Game. Scratch is under development for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

“With the recent success of music-driven videogames and the dominance of urban culture in the youth market, the potential for Scratch is endless,” Jones said in a statement.

There are no details on which hip-hop artists will appear in the game; the press release only promises “original recordings from the catalogs of many top urban artists.” We’d also like to know more about the concept of improvising on the fly in addition to the usual note-matching sequences.

Also of note is how this will compare to a possible “DJ Hero,” rumored to be in production by Guitar Hero publisher Activision. Is the death of rock at hand?

[Press Release via Joystiq]