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Thanks a lot, guys: Xbox 360 Guitar Hero II song packs hit Multi-Platinum status photo

Despite the Internet (including myself) having a kitten over the pricing and delivery of Guitar Hero II downloadable content for the Xbox 360, Activision is pleased to announce that they're rich.

In a press release sent out this morning, the publisher reveals that the Xbox 360 song packs have had over 650,000 downloads through Xbox LIVE Marketplace in less than five months. By RIAA standards, that's defined as "multi-platinum" status, almost assuring that downloadable song content for future Guitar Hero titles will be delivered in a similar fashion, and at the same price (if not more). The music industry is pleased, indeed.

"We have been working very closely with Activision to make our catalog available for download for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II," said Rod Kotler, Director of Music Service for EMI Music Publishing, "The results we have seem from download sales to date have been very impressive. This partnership is providing EMI Music Publishing and its songwriters with a valuable new source of revenue, and at the same time giving us the opportunity to exploit portions of our catalog that might otherwise not get such high-profile exposure."

Like My Chemical Romance for instance, a band that no one has ever heard of -- their song pack (the only "new" playable songs released for the 360 version of Guitar Hero II) had 50,000 downloads in its first week. Activision hopes to continue this profitable relationship well into the imminent success of Guitar Hero III -- prepare your wallets accordingly.


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42 comments | showing # 1 to 42

Mxyzptlk's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:34
Mxyzptlk
Oh God, do they have that annoying "Black Parade" song? Anyone who's downloaded any song by My Chemical Romance deserves a bitch slap.
Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:36
Snaileb
I'm just here to voice my opinion on the buttholes that download this crap.

You're buttholes.

And yes, I know even alot of you dtoiders bought these. Buttholes.
Neonie's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:38
Neonie
Well... not sure what to say.

At least the Live download service is doing well. That makes me happy.
Mxyzptlk's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:39
Mxyzptlk
I have 50,000 people to bitch slap. Seriously, fess up, which ones of you bought this emote shit?
itemforty's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:39
itemforty
"Activision is pleased to announce that they're rich."
Bwahahah awesome. That would be the easiest press release ever.




AngelsDontBurn's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:44
AngelsDontBurn
Now.. If they'll only drop the price. Honestly my stomach hurts at the thought of how much the albums for Rock Band will be considering these are already pretty expensive.
Professor Pew's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:44
Professor Pew
50.000 white suburban young who that the world hates but their parents give money to? I can see them downloading My Chemical Romance packs for money. Hanging out and being emo all day is not that expensive.
Cowboy TTop's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:49
Cowboy TTop
Suckers. They say you coming. I still don't dig those prices and if I did have Guitar Hero, I wouldn't be downloading so much tracks. Each to their own.
mackisawesome's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:56
mackisawesome
i really gotta actully play a guitar hero game.
Swifty64's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 08:59
Swifty64
How much are the downloads?
GuitarAtomik's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:00
GuitarAtomik
I can only hope that Rock Band's DLC pricing will be cheaper and more fair if only to force GH's DLC to compete and lower it's prices. Or AT LEAST offer the songs separately. Rock Band's DLC albums have already been confirmed to be offered as separate songs as well as bundled as an album and that's the way it should be.
twincannon's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:01
twincannon
"...giving us the opportunity to exploit portions of our catalog that might otherwise not get such high-profile exposure."

lulz
Justice's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:08
Justice
Idiots.
Corncobtacular's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:10
Corncobtacular
i can't fucking stand where this is going
BluDesign's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:17
BluDesign
I cannot comprehend why anyone would buy the MCR tracks. Do you hate life so much that you have to financially support other people who claim to hate life?

teknomusik's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:31
teknomusik
What a bunch of fucktards.
Rhoq's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:38
Rhoq
According to RIAA certification, you have to reach sales of 1,000,000 to qualify as "Platinum". At 650,000 downloads, it has gone "Gold".
ohgr89's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 09:52
ohgr89
bend over for the strap-on. this is why people can't have their own money.
Zac Bentz's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 10:02
Zac Bentz
"Like My Chemical Romance for instance, a band that no one has ever heard of"

I WISH.

OwningXylophone's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 10:15
OwningXylophone
Why is it so hard to believe that people this? I bought one of those track packs, the one with 'Smoke on the Water' in, for 1 reason... I actually liked the songs and wanted to play them! I know that might seem odd to the mighty trollfest that is the dtoid message boards.

Really, it rolls back to the same old point, Activison did not hold a gun to anybodies head and force them to buy them. Instead people who actually wanted to play them bought them. And the pricing really isn't that extreme, there are far worse example on XBox Marketplace, i.e. anything for oblivion (they all should have been half their price), 80 points for 1 car in Forza 2, Uno theme decks... You get the picture...
Necros's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 10:17
Necros
I can't believe that's the only band they ever released for it. I know Harmonix promised a stream of content, but I guess that got forgotten in the legal split and ended up just tossing on a few old songs and some crap.
Teta's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 10:20
Teta
For anything else,
Your Daddy´s VISA.
skullivan's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 10:22
skullivan
It all depends on what Rock Band is charging for their content. They can't afford to charge $2 per song for the full albums because that would put some albums at over $25. No one is going to shell out that much. EA/Harmonix has also said that everything will be available as individual tracks.

The sales have obviously trailed off significantly too. They had 500K downloads of the first 3 song packs before they released any others. If the MCR song pack sold 50K on it's own then that's less than 100K downloads of the other new packs (because since they've been released the older packs have surely gotten some downloads as well).

What sucks is when people shell out for overpriced crap like this it encourages them to put out *less* content. The more that's available the less people will be willing to pay for it because they'll pick and choose.

Hopefully Rock Band having dozens of tracks available through full albums will light a fire under Activision to actually release content regularly. They boasted that GHII would have more content than any other Live title ever and that, so far, has been BS.

The big question also is, will the old downloads work from within GHIII?

I know even with Rock Band I'm concerned about compatibility with the inevitable Rock Band 2.
jerrt's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 11:05
jerrt
well i didn't contribute. no bitch slaps in this direction....
SLiFE's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 11:47
SLiFE
Then get on the bitchslapping bandwagon jerrt... We've got to teach the assholes a lesson.
Winston Churchill's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 12:16
Winston Churchill
Hi guys.

I bought an MCR song pack. And it was worth every penny.
vexed alex's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 12:40
vexed alex
Winston Church, you're a good man. You know that MCR song that came with Guitar Hero 2? I dug it. It was a fun song to play. Does it mean I want to stab my neck because my shit isn't going they way I want it to? Nope. Some of us aren't influenced by music. We just like it because it makes are feet tap. Ugh, son! Everyone shut the fuck up!

Now, back to the post, thanks everyone. Thanks for letting the happy people over at Activision and Microsoft that you'll gladly suck up every last bit of nut they jerk out of their window.
Husky Hog's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 13:03
Husky Hog
HOLD ON HOLD ON

Everybody's heard of MCR

and I'm hoping you were being sarcastic
Sharpless's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 13:17
Sharpless
I curse the dense, wretched souls of every single gel-headed, collar-popping frat dick who purchased those MCR songs.

And yes, Husky, he was being sarcastic. 99.9999998% probability.
Mogambi's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 13:29
Mogambi
If you don't want it don't buy it. STOP COMPLAINING! You have a choice to buy it or not.
ian_esq's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 13:32
ian_esq
Well they can afford to use the microsoft wireless technology for the guitars in GH3
Aequitas's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 14:26
Aequitas
I bought the pack with Killer Queen. Had to have it. Sorry.

I was hoping for more new stuff that doesn't suck. Looks like I'll be disappointed. I can't imagine them working very hard on new content for GH2 when GH3 is right around the corner.

Fuck em, anyway. Not getting any more money from me for Guitar Hero. That itch has been scratched, and I can always return to it and try to beat hard/expert.

Rock Band looks interesting, but it would take a lot of peer pressure for me to get it, and I ain't got no friends. So fuck that, too.
vexed alex's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 14:44
vexed alex
Oh, some of us want to buy it, Mogambi. We just don't want to feel ripped off for doing so. I mean, why not just sell individual songs instead of packing on one good song and another 2 crappy ones. It's bullshit.

Do you not understand what it does to Marketplace if people continue to buy over priced crap or shit that has a catch to it. It ruins everything else. Soon will have to buy Halo maps with a purchase of a six pack of Mountain Dew along with the 1,000 points they'll sell it for. It's ass.
vexed alex's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 14:47
vexed alex
Ew....all those mistakes in my last post. Sorry for the crap.
A New Challenger's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 15:44
A New Challenger
Has EA stopped selling cheat codes and tutorial videos? Because I haven't heard that make the news since last year's Madden and The Godfather. I take that to mean the market worked in our favor. That was incredibly fucking retarded.

@Mogambi:
If people aren't getting what they want, they have a right to speak out about it. Not buying what they feel is overpriced content is a good first step. Attempting to persuade others of the validity of their own opinions is another valid method. The "I hate all you assholes who bought this shit" sentiment may be a bit harsh, but telling people to shut up because they have genuine concerns that the potential of the market is being wasted isn't the way to go about things.
bmdubya's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 16:05
bmdubya
I bought every track pack. So bitch slap me all you want. They are there only if you want to buy them, no one is making you purchase the tracks, and a lot of you have pointed out that you didn't buy them. I didn't have Guitar Hero 1, so I wanted to play those songs, and I actually like My Chemical Romance, so I wanted to play those songs.
Jordan Devore's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 16:38
Jordan Devore
Just release More Than A Feeling as DLC and I'll be happy.
Mogambi's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 17:16
Mogambi
@Mogambi:
If people aren't getting what they want, they have a right to speak out about it. Not buying what they feel is overpriced content is a good first step. Attempting to persuade others of the validity of their own opinions is another valid method. The "I hate all you assholes who bought this shit" sentiment may be a bit harsh, but telling people to shut up because they have genuine concerns that the potential of the market is being wasted isn't the way to go about things.

I never told anyone to "shut up"....My point was if you don't want it don't buy it! I would rather have the option to buy it, than no option at all. If you don't want to pay what they are charging, then don't buy it. Oh yeah by the way, I purchased one of the packs, and I felt like it was a good value.
Sharpless's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 19:00
Sharpless
Mogambi, I believe that what most people are upset about is that, due to such high sales numbers, the too-high prices are now justified in the companies' eyes. "Hey, they're buying it, so there's no need to price it more reasonably!" We were - or, at least, I was - hoping that the consumers would collectively say, "We're not gonna take it!" and they'd be forced to reevaluate. The shit content - MCR - is another issue altogether.
Samit Sarkar's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/11/2007 20:16
Samit Sarkar
@Sharpless: Ah, you’d think that the consumers would collectively say, “We’re not gonna take it,” but you forget — Twisted Sister doesn’t have a song featured in any of the packs.

As to the news, I can’t say that I’m surprised, but I am certainly disgusted. It’s not like we didn’t all know this already, but this country is full of morons. Morons with money, apparently...
Winston Churchill's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/12/2007 07:54
Winston Churchill
It's interesting really, because I don't consider the price to be too high at all.

When you factor in song licensing PLUS the fact that someone still has to make those little coloured circles match up with the notes in the song (and they do this for a job that they need to get PAID for), you become a sensible person instead of someone who decries anything that isn't free.
FreePablo's Avatar - Comment posted on 09/18/2007 20:17
FreePablo
You do know why people bought the MCR pack? Because you could get the 1000 note streak and 400K points achievement on medium for one of it's songs. So hundreds of thousands of people literally just spent about $6.25 for a picture and some imaginary points.
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