NPD Group’s Anita Frazier has cast a grim outlook on the formerly booming music game market, revealing that sales are down 46% from last year. Although things are bleak, it's not all bad, since music games are still top sellers and the recent release of The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 may re-energize things.
"While sales of this genre are down 46% year-to-date," explains Frazier, "unit sales are down much less because lower prices are playing into the dollar sales decline. It's still the third best-selling genre for the year after General Action and Multiple/Other Sports (where Wii Fit resides)."
Given the saturation of the music game genre, it's hardly surprising that sales are down. Evil publisher Activision releases several Guitar Hero games a year, and then there's Rock Band, SingStar, and plenty of bottom-shelf "me too" games that aren't important enough to be mentioned. We simply don't need all these plastic peripheral music games, and even of the ones we do need, there are too many spin-offs and sequels.
I hope the industry cools its jets before the bottom falls out of the whole thing. The mainstream market has a ridiculous tolerance for things, but there is always a breaking point.
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.
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Contest:
9:20 AM on 09.11.2009
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Oh, it's the dollar, is it? Not the fact that everybody is suffocated by these friggin' things. Bejeebus, even George Harrison's son doesn't even know the difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero...and he worked on one of these bloody things!
And that header is purty.
If you release one every month, then this is what happens.
*gasp*
@Niero you ship those t-shirts yet?
Saying he doesnt know the difference between the two games is pretty asinine.
That said, thanks a lot Activision, you officially supersaturated the market and made people get sick of the genre. Then again if you look at Amazons top selling games, Rock Band 2 (yes, RB2, not Beatles) is about to overtake Guitar Hero 5 in sales. So maybe they didn't hurt the genre itself as much as they hurt themselves.
God I hope so.
46% is a big number when you consider sales and the amount it already sold.
Keep it up with the AWESOME header images Jim. Best yet.
Fuck off DJ Hero, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero. Same goes to any others I missed.
Actually, fuck extra peripherals in general. If you can't do it with the controller: STOP.
(Peripheral-based, that is. Show me Gitaroo Man 2 or UmJammer 2 and I'll empty my wallet in exchange.)
Rock Band is never bad. Its the anti-Guitar Hero. I rather see more Rock Band games than GH games because HMX knows what they're doing.
The Burnout Paradise people (Criterion) didn't do it. They created a platform, and extended the hell out of it.
That's the way it should be done.
but not every year and i used a knife.
i hate activision, literally hate activision,
rather be street corner prostitute disease fishing.
everybody hates Activision, so its understandable.
The face that this post came out just before announcing Tenacious D on Rock Band makes me even more confident in my choice of music genre. Anyone who cares anything about music games will stick to Rock Band. Guitar Hero has become a bane of the industry.
think all of a sudden "im a rock star cuz i can play the dragonforce songs on
guitar queero"
ive got a friend who wants to join a real band because he can play drums on rock band...
not cool
this kind of attraction to music is what ruined hip hop.
oh and dj hero
ha dj's are not musicians there rippin off musicians
so screw these games sideways with a b.c. rich headstock.:)
That's the same point I've been making about Activision for a hot minute now. If those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, then I think the company who had a large stake in the first collapse should take better notes before that mistake costs even more the second time around.
But, we are talking about the sequel factory that caused me to love Tony Hawk, then loathe him - and for the most part, it's not even Birdman's fault, he just cashes the checks.
Who's the little lady under that guitar?
I've spent way, WAY more money than I wish to share on tracks for Rock Band since its launch.
Wait, what was the article about?