17 Oct, 2010
Fears of a massive decrease in the popularity of titles such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band are mounting, after the latest sales figures for Activision’s latest title ‘Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock’ have been shockingly below expectation. ‘Warriors of Rock’, released this September was met with a ‘fairly dreadful start’, entering the UK all-formats chart at 6 and selling just 86,000 units in it’s first five days when compared the much higher figures of the series predecessors, according to figures released by CVG.
Guitar Hero 5 wracked up an impressive 499,000 sales in it’s first month in 2009, and before then Guitar Hero III sold a whopping 1.4 Million units in it’s first 5 days. Looking at the figures of objectively, it would almost be fair to say that Guitar Hero is coming to the end of it’s day, with support and anticipation been invested into it’s competitor series ‘Rock Band’ who are beginning to incorporate new and exciting technology into the franchise with the introduction of the ‘Pro Guitar’ for Rock Band 3, due end of this month. Rock Band’s developers ‘Harmonix’ spoke earlier this year to talk down the fear of a decline in the music game genre, stating that they did not yet feel that the genre was even close to reaching it’s full potential. Still critics are skeptical about just how well Rock Band 3 will perform when put against the Guitar Hero figures- Will Rock Band 3 be able to save what looks to be an ailing genre?
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, is available now on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Rock Band 3 is due for release October 29th 2010 on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Seriously. How is this a surprise to the industry?! :P