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.
Going for the sex sells eh? Not that anyone would know the difference either way.
“Companies spend money like fish” Doesn’t sound like any company I’ve been at. I have at two work places that had several computers still on XP, they take a long time to upgrade anything. I’ve seen old plotters still be used from decades ago. I think companies tend to the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Paul if you have a spare Windows 7 computer why don’t you see if Grim Fandango works on it? Or have you already tried?
@Windows 10: Yeah it feels like a real desperate attempt at good will for the Windows OS in general. I think giving it away free for a year they feel will garner some slack. Though if you upgrade I don’t know if you can go back to Windows 7 or 8.
@Kojima: I think Metal Gear is becoming one of those games that need to be retired now.
@Tempest Debacle: Looking at the screen shots I feel like I have seen this game mechanic before in other games. Having never played these two I can see it’s a ship that spins around a “pit” shooting at things in the center. I feel that that was a very old Atari game at some point. However he’ll probably have to pay a settlement for this as it does look like he is trying to remake the game that belongs to Atari now. There’s making a game that uses certain mechanics and then there’s just making what looks to be a clone of what they did previously. If I made a game where you jump up and down a large block pyramid with a little orange dude named Q’bort I’m sure Atari would see through that as well.
@Xbox for sale: If it’s for sale maybe a former console company could buy it to bring its self back like Sega or Atari. Though I don’t know if anyone would want to buy it. With the way they’ve been talking about integrating Xbox and Windows gaming I don’t think they would sell that then.
@Nintendo’s NX Gen: I’m intrigued what they will do, if nothing else we’ll have a new name to have fun with the NX Gen.
Since there was no QotW, I thought I’d ask something: “What do you think is the future of Old Games?” To give more context anyone who wants to read an old book, see an old movie or listen to an old song can easily do so. However with Games that will become difficult, especially in cases of games that are Online only and once servers are gone so too is the game. Later generations of people may have a hard time playing games that are no longer workable on current gen consoles or even computers. I wanted to know what your guys thoughts are on this.