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Guitar Hero III the First Game to $1 Billion In Sales
The Opposable Thumbs blog reports that Guitar Hero III has reached a financial milestone, becoming the first individual video game to reach $1 billion in total sales. The number is even higher if you consider the rest of the franchise. In addition to helping drive the video game industry during tough economic times (much like the Wii), it's helping other industries as well: "... aside from the fact that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith had sold three times as many copies as the band's last album during their respective first weeks, musicians whose music is featured in the game has seen a rise in music sales to the tune of 15-843 percent." And CVG notes, "... two-thirds of non-musicians exposed to music games plan to start playing a real instrument in the next couple of years." Also, Rock Band creator Harmonix may be looking into a partnership with the record labels to sell music for use outside of the games.
"Guitar Hero III the First Game to $1 Billion In Sales"
from the this-sentence-no-verb dept.
Anyone want to help me set the record? I have a game here that I'll sell to any interested parties for $1.1 billion, any two interested parties for $0.55 billion. any three interested parties for...
I can definitely speak to Guitar Hero inspiring musicianship and boosting sales of real guitar equipment. Since playing Guitar Hero for the first time, less than a year ago, I have purchased 2 guitars, 2 amps, a plethora of accessories and quite a bit in instruction. I've been playing now for about 6 months and love every minute of it, even practice. Not as easy as Guitar Hero is (obviously), but so much more rewarding when you learn a new lick on a real guitar than when you perfect a song on GH, IMHO.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Surely it's difficult to sell something that's twice the price (because of the required peripheral) of other games? I'll complain about $90 games but had no qualms about paying $180 for a game and two dorky plastic guitars. That's pretty impressive.
I think $1b is a milestone worth noting.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Someone correct my numbers if I'm wrong but Wii Fit has roughly 13.9m sales total at a cost of about $90 per game plus balance board so $1.2b. I'll ignore Wii Sports as it comes with every Wii. If Guitar Hero is being measured to include the hardware addons, I'm only seeing roughly 4.2m across the Wii, 360, and PS3 total. That means $238 per sale of Guitar Hero. These numbers are based off of vgchartz's website for total sales (seen on the expanded weekly chart).
If they want to include hardware with a game then maybe all Wii purchases were actually to purchase Wii Sports to a tune of 40.9m sales at $250 a sale so $10.2b.
Everyone seems fond of pointing this out, along with listing a bunch of other games that sold more copies. The thing is, however, that that isn't the point. Cheaper games _should_ sell more because of where they hit the demand curve. The point is that despite requiring somewhat pricey peripherals it still sold enough copies to reach $1 billion, and that's impressive. It's even more so when you consider that many people are buying this over 2 other games (due to increased price); that's why using total revenue is actually a useful benchmark.
Finally, I would point out that since guitars from previous versions work with III, a large percentage of people only needed to buy the software, not the bundle. So if you don't believe the above, than realize that 60% or so of those sales are at the standard game price.
"... two-thirds of non-musicians exposed to music games plan to start playing a real instrument in the next couple of years"
Uh, yeah, and I am planning to have a brick barbequeue, jacuzzi, fake beach and year-round soft fruit crops on my allotment in the next couple of years.
I'll be pleased if I actually get rid of all the weeds :)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
GH2 actually felt remotely akin to playing the guitar.
GH3 is endless fret-wankery.
The thing that annoys me most about GH3, is that as a guitarist I've had to deal with tendonitis and carpel tunnel syndrome on a couple of occasions before now. Those were as a result of playing too fast, without properly warming up.
GH3 at the higher levels requires far too much finger work to be safe imho. There's no real directions given in the game that you should warm up; not play for too long; and seek medical attention if you experience pains in your hands.
I wonder how many 12 year old kids will end up getting codine shots in a couple of years time.... just seems a little irresponsible to me.
As a real guitar player (playing for 16 years) I think it's great that the game inspires people to pick up the instrument (or any instrument for that matter) in the real world.
However, what I've noticed is that people assume because you can play real guitar, that you should RIP at Guitar Hero. In my case, nothing could be further from the truth. As a guitar player you're used to certain things. Throw in a game controller and it's mechanics and while at face value it looks similar, it just isn't.
I think a lot of people that pick up the guitar and try to learn on it (aside from the guy above who seems like he's enjoying it), will find that there's a VERY steep learning curve. It's hard, it takes a LOT of practice and perserverence. It's an instrument that you get "out" of it, what you put "into" it. Like anything else.
All I know is that I think a lot of these people that "plan" on trying to learn the instrument for real will be wholly disappointed at their progress when they're not playing Crazy Train or Sweet Child O' Mine after day 2.
If you don't think being the first game to sell a billion dollars isn't anything special, then if I start a games company I really don't want you running it.
If that was the case, they would have sold it for $100.
I'm really good at Guitar Hero - not the best, but the best of my circle of friends. Beat every song on expert on Guitar Hero III except "Through the Fire and Flames" and the Devil battle.
I also have eight years of guitar playing (mostly original compositions in a few indie rock and punk bands) and six years of violin/fiddle from when I was younger (classical ensembles and quartets).
Interestingly, I think that I use what I learned from violin playing more when I play GH. That's because you know what I realized GH really is?
Sight reading.
It's vertical sight reading instead of horizontal, but still the same thing (and better in some ways, since you don't have to flip your own pages). Being able to see a line coming and mentally prepare my fingers for the actions they're about to perform is exclusively what I did on violin (not so much on guitar).
You're right about the big difference between guitar and guitar-hero, of course - five buttons does not equate to six strings and 22 frets as far as movements your hands make. However, Guitar Hero is great for teaching two things that definitely come in handy for work - coordination of two hands (one strumming, one making movements on the fretboard), and proper timing (because I'm sure you're annoyed as I am when you're trying to jam with a guitarist that has no rhythm).
For people who are just learning the instrument and may be interested in reading tab or musical score, the sight reading aspect of GH is valuable as well.
The learning curve is definitely steep (as with all instruments), but I have personally witnessed two people pick up real guitar because of how much fun they have with GH. Seems that they're sticking with it, too.
Seek medical attention? Good lord, does your mommy still make your lunch for you? Its a plastic toy, that doesn't require any sort of fret stretching, thumb usage, finger callus, right hand cramping.... warning labels on plastic guitars... haha, now THATS funny
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?