The Guitar Hero/Rock Band battle wages on mercilessly, with innovation after innovation, but if you were wondering what the motivation behind all the add-ons, DLC and pop group tie ins was, we now know: sales of both series have crashed, with revenues dropping almost 50 percent in a year.
Gamasutra whipped out the abacus and totted up estimates for sales of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and found that revenues from off the shelf sales have dropped 49 percent year on year. Ouch.
Guitar Hero 5 drumkit official
So much for games being credit crunch proof, eh? Of course, with such expensive kit, it’s perfectly possible that Rock Band and Guitar Hero are nearing saturation point already. But what the stats don’t show is the success of all the downloadable tracks.
Rock Band in particular is storming along on this front, racking up 40million track downloads and taking a tidy profit from each. Activision, you might want to take note and start stepping up the DLC tracks for Guitar Hero, since it’s clear no one is hanging around for hard copies of Guitar Hero: Yet Another 80s Stadium Rock Group In Wheelchairs any more.
Out Now | £varies | Guitar Hero and Rock Band (Via Gamasutra)
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