If you look at the way the gaming community talks about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, you'd think that the latter is dominating the former. Especially on Destructoid, people were quick to jump ship from Activision to EA when Rock Band was released, and often looks upon Guitar Hero nowadays with disdain.
Activision probably doesn't care, however, if its claim of domination in the music game market is to be believed. According to CEO Bobby Kotick, Guitar Hero is currently outselling Rock Band by 600%.
"We’re outselling [Rock Band] 6:1. When you think about the access we have to 30 percent of the world’s music at Universal, we have a unique advantage there.
I would also say when you look at resources, you know, our next-nearest competitor has a couple of hundred people working on these projects, we have close to 2,000 people just dedicated to the Guitar Hero note tracking, introduction of new hardware, introduction of new software, and so we just have a lot more in the way of resources available to us to continue to dominate the category."
Of course, Activision is helped by the fact that Guitar Hero has two sequels and a couple of spin-offs while so far, the younger Rock Band franchise consists of two installments, one of which was only released recently. That said, Guitar Hero was the first music game since DDR to make a huge mainstream splash, so it's not surprising to see that Rock Band hasn't been able to replace it in the minds of the average consumer.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
Likes
PS2, iPod Touch, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dynasty Warriors 3
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
36 comments | showing # 1 to 36
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
8:44 AM on 09.18.2008
| 
B) Rock Band is the 'Real' Guitar Hero sequel as it is made my the original devs.
c) I own neither, only played a few times. ( I may be wrong apart from point A. )
Rock Band = new hotness
At that point one of two things will happen:
-Rock Band will become the super popular choice
-All music games will suffer because of the GH over saturation
I hope its not the latter.
Guitar Hero sells a lot more units because it's there for people to actually buy and they're not profiteering on the exchange rates.
Harmonix have no one to blame for that but themselves and their publisher.
Christmas last year you couldn't find rockband anywhere, yet Guitar Hero 3 was filling shelves.
I won't buy another guitar hero game. I will continue to buy rockband until something comes out that crushes them both.
Over here it's a packaging, bundling and pricing issue, not to mention that it's not advertiesed on TV so nobody casual knows what it is or why they should get it over Guitar Hero.
There's way too many Guitar Hero games on the market (GH1-3, 80s, On Tour, Aerosmith, GHWT, and more spinoffs coming). Of course it should be outselling them right now! Activision is turning GH into Madden 'Rhythm Based'.
Also. Rock Band is the 'true' sequel to Guitar Hero 1 as far as I'm concerned.
Rock Band FTW.
Also employees can opt to add 1 oz of fat to judy nail's body every version. (I'm not saying she is fat, just fatter... and fat if she was held by an asian standard...)
PS rockband needs to give me some damned Sloan.
The statement by Activision is bunk, as it's comparing units instead of gross sales. Sure, they sell 6:1, but Rock Band costs 5 times as much.
The whole world - vs the US and recently, europe
$100 per game vs $300 per game
If they hadnt sold a ton more than rockband has so far, id be pretty unimpressed with them.
Also claiming they have access to a ton of music means nothing - you have to actually put it in your game for that to count. Rockband has what, 200 odd songs already?
But then, Activision are particularly good at the pr spin. It frustrates me how much everyone does it these days.
It's like saying Nintendo consoles outsell Sony consoles 50:1, because they are looking at the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gamecube, Wii, DS...etc., etc.
but when rock band came out it was cool at first. but everytime i goto a friends house who has it i can never find a song i want to play/like.
500 songs means nothing if over half of them are indie garbage, or songs no one wants to hear.
ever notice people play the same songs over and over?
my friend has every available RB DLC song. i rarely see him play anything else besides the same 7 songs EVERY TIME. and i see this with everyone i know who has this game.
kthx
Harmonix.
Hello, they AREN'T working on Guitar Hero anymore. In fact, they're the creators of Rock Band. You know, that game you're now taking cues from after Neversoft nearly drove GH into the ground ala Universal Studios developing Crash after Naughty Dog left?
What gall, honestly. Leave the shit throwing to the monkeys, and make your note charts more fun to play. Try to carry the torch in an acceptable fashion and don't ruin it like you did Tony Hawk after you ran out of ideas. And for god's sake, fix the art style back. If there's one thing I've noticed about Rock Band, it's that the spectacle is as engaging as the note tracks themselves. I don't notice anything in Guitar Hero 3 except the notechart.
Dicks.
/rant end
Absolutely hate EA and will never purchase ANYTHING for Rock Band.
Hello, just because you own the license now doesn't mean you can take credit for the sales before you had it.