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Digital
Music game sales slump
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 18 January 2010
Stats from NPD Group suggest that sales figures for music-based videogames – so the pretend-to-play franchises – were down last year, which I think we already knew, but it’s good to have these things confirmed.
The stats say that the much hyped Beatles edition of ‘Rock Band’ sold 1.18 million units in the US, and 1.7 million units globally. By contrast, ‘Rock Band 2’ sold 1.7 million units in the US alone in its first four months on sale in 2008. Similarly ‘Guitar Hero’ scored disappointing figures last year. ‘Guitar Hero 5’ shifted 996,000 units in the US, where as ‘Guitar Hero: World Tour’ shifted a whopping 3.4 million units in 2008.
For a brief time the pretend-to-play franchises were tipped as being important future revenue streams for the music industry. Of course, said franchises continue to generate money for labels and music publishers through ongoing download sales, so are still a welcome addition to the digital music mix. Whether the gaming sector will remain so committed to the formats remains to be seen.
