Since the explosion of the genre in 2006 and 2007, music games seem to have hit their saturation point. Can anything stop the demise of Guitar Hero?
Low launch numbers for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and DJ Hero 2 have lead to Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz to revise his sales predictions from 2.5 million units sold down to less than 1 million – combined. “The only silver lining,” Creutz said, “is that the music genre should cease to be a focus of investor concerns as it has now become fairly immaterial to overall results.”
Warriors of Rock released on September 28th and, according to NPD Group, only sold 86,000 copies over the last month. The launch of DJ Hero 2 seems to be equally as soft despite positive reviews. While Rock Band 3 is launching this week and looks to innovate rather than stagnate, the high price of joining may put off some users from getting the new game. Creutz believes that Activision should approach Viacom to merge the Guitar Hero and the Rock Band names, possibly under the house that started it all, Harmonix. Of course, this is just purely business speculation, as it is highly unlikely that Activision would team up with EA Games on anything.
The entire music genre is essentially depending on Rock Band at this point. If the Harmonix fails to invigorate sales, could this be the last big push? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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