Rhythm Gaming is all the rage, or is it? Turns out Guitar Hero: World Tour didn’t meet or exceed the figures they hit with Guitar Hero III. Where GH3 brought in $115 million in the first week, GHWT brought in $67 million in the same time frame.
Why?
There are plenty of factors that could cut down the sales units, considering those that can purchase Guitar Hero World Tour don’t have to purchase additional instruments to play the game like they played GH3.
- Rock Band 2: This game arrived before Guitar Hero 3 and folks went for this game instead because it was first to launch. Some gamers have to make a choice on which to purchase because they can’t buy both.
- Hot Games: Although Rhythm gaming can be fun, a lot of great games are arriving this season so gamers have to make some big decisions.
- Economics: The economy isn’t exactly thriving right now and retail outlets are already predicting less than stellar numbers.
- Saturation: Since the original Guitar Hero game, we’ve had a number of titles from Activision including their Aerosmith edition and Harmonix pulling out Rock Band and Rock Band 2. There is talk of a Hendrix version and a Metallic release – how much is too much?
We know people love charts, so here is another to toss at you via Kotaku:

Guitar Hero World Tour Sales, via Kotaku
The break down from Guitar Hero 3 to World Tour is obvious, also apparent is the shift in console when buying into the rhythm gaming franchises. The Wii has started taking more market share, odd considering the DLC isn’t there, and the PS3 is showing its lackluster sales of the console by growing in proportion but not excelling to grab huge share (PS3 fanboys attack!). Sony kicked ass by taking control of the share using their PlayStation 2 with Guitar Hero 3, but has lost that lead for the World Tour.
Will these lower sales figure change the future roadmap for Activision in their Guitar Hero franchise or are they satisfied taking home $67 million in the first week of the launch. That is still a lot of money and probably doesn’t even consider any money they could (or will) potentially make on the World Tour hardware.
Luckily, the rhythm gaming content doesn’t get old with age, it just gets more classic. No doubt Guitar Hero World Tour will be landing in homes over the holidays and into 2009.
Hello guys.
(First of all: i am not a native english speaker, so please excuse me, if some sentences sound horrible ๐ )
I really enjoy every episode of your stream. Thank you for your time doing such a nice podcast!
In the latest episode you asked the listener to comment about Ono mentioned, that there will be no pay to win in Street Fighter 5. I am a huge Fan of Street Fighter (since i played it the first time on the SNES (i think itยดs called super favicon in th US ๐ )). Regarding SF4 (and all the updates: super, ultra and so on). there is NO opportunity to pay to win. The only thing you can buy, are other costumes and stuff like that. All balancing is for free, which means, you can’t buy an updated version of a character to make it stronger. If you have a newer version of the game (for example the lastest one: ultra street fighter 4) you are only able to use the new characters against other people who got the latest version. But you have the opportunity to select an older version of the game, before you look online for opponents. This means a person who has NOT the newest version of the game, and with this, neither the new characters is NOT able to play against another player with a new version. He is only able to play against other players with the same version of the game. so it is NOT able to pay to win … except you feel like a winner, when your char has another costume ๐
Belonging to your question of the week, my favourite “monster” is not a real monster … itยดs only a giant turtle: Groร-A’Tuin. I don’t exactly, if it has the same name in the english version, but this is the giant turtle from Discworld, on which back are standing the four giants, which carry the disc world ๐ I really like big giant things .. such as this out of the world turtle … itยดs so smooth and gentle ๐
I have two question for you: is there any possibility to get older episodes than the ones in itunes-podcast?
second one: do you have experience in upscaling devices, so i can play my old consoles (like NES and Master System) on a new Plasma tv? A friend told me about this site: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de … but i hope you may have some experience already and could share them with me ๐
Thanks again for your great work, and please keep on doing this podcast.
If you ever want to visit germany, maybe to join the games con or just for fun, contact me … i can help you around in germany and you can stay at my place ๐
So long, greetings
Ralf