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Guitar Hero and Rock Band See Huge Downloads, Increasing Music Sales
log1385 writes "More than 5 million songs have been sold as downloads for Guitar Hero III since November, and Rock Band has seen some 2.5 million downloads just in the last two months. These games are positive financial experiences for music labels outside of the Xbox Live/PlayStation Networks, as well. Songs included in the two games have seen bumps in popularity through other commercial outlets as well. Though not huge, they are noticeable enough to prompt future projects. 'MTVN already has plans to expand its outreach to artists, creating additional game expansions -- as both physical products and downloadable content -- around specific music genres and even artists. "We are talking to tons of bands, from indie to the most established ... to release not necessarily their entire catalog, but maybe some of their classic albums and do special packages around that," [MTV division president Van Toffler] said.'" Rock Band has certainly worked on me - I've been buying tracks to listen to the drum parts.
The songs get a bunch of free exposure, and most of the songs on Guitar Hero are pretty good songs to begin with. Unfortunately for the music biz, I already own all the songs legally that I want from Guitar Hero, so no bump in sales from me, I haven't paid for any of the packs yet, though I do like the Halo Mix.
You take a mans love for music, and give him the ability to interact with it without much skill required, or money. This is a great way to success. I love playing drums. Even more I love playing to some of my favorite songs. You really get into it and feel like your apart of it.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
This is exactly what I DON'T want to happen. Record companies start to realize that if they can get their songs into the games they might stand to make a buck. They'll start slipping Red Octane bribes to place their songs in the lineup. Then the games will become just as watered down as CD's are now. We'll end up paying (assuming we still support the game) sixty bucks for a game with four songs we actually enjoy and the rest will be crap.
I can see it now, Guitar hero XXXVII: Brittany and the Constantine ROCK THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Captcha: Dwindled, how fitting...
The problem is that the Wii only has 512 MB internal memory. That isn't very many tracks. So far, Nintendo has been crippling games's ability to either run off of or access information off of additional memory cards, so the obvious solution is out. Really, if they made a minor firmware update to allow the Wii to access Virtual Console and other downloaded content directly off of SD cards, it would simplify a lot of things, from downloaded original games to expansion packs.
The Wii's internal system memory is not designed for the "release-now-and-patch-later" approach that too many game companies are doing today. I don't see how it could be done later without somehow encoding it within the upcoming discs; otherwise, they'd likely have to send out new discs again in order to enable DLC. My guess is that DLC functionality will be available on the fix disc but that the actual content will be made available later.
I do agree, however, that the whole "You'll be without your game for who-knows-how-long while we get a replacement to you" method is bullsh*t. Why the hell don't they just do what EA did for that abomination, "Ultima: Ascension"? Registered users get the replacement sent to them for free. That's it. It's not like the game has any 3rd party guitars out there! If you want the game, you have to have a genuine, Wii guitar for the game, which means you must have bought it! There is no incentive for someone falsely ordering the replacement disc unless they bought the game.
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