One hundred fifteen million dollars.
That was how much revenue Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock brought in in its first week on the market recently.
But the Guitar Hero franchise, which Activision bought in 2006, has lost its monopoly as the only major video game giving users the fantasy that they can join Steven Tyler or Bono onstage.
'Rock Band' includes dozens of hit songs, including one by the Rolling Stones.
(Credit: Amazon)That's because Harmonix, the studio that developed the original Guitar Hero, has finally launched Rock Band, its own version of the rock star genre game, and the market is likely to heat up pretty quickly.
Many Guitar Hero fans still consider Harmonix--which is owned by MTV--the real deal, and so many of them are likely to eschew the new Guitar Hero in favor of Rock Band. Others will choose both games, and I can imagine dueling Guitar Hero, Rock Band competitions in bars, at parties, and even on TV.
Well, maybe not on TV.
It will be very interesting to see if Rock Band can come anywhere near the first-week sales figures of Guitar Hero III. My guess is it won't get there, only because of the name-brand recognition of the latter. But I'm willing to be surprised. There's definitely something to be said for true bloodlines, which is what Rock Band and Harmonix have going for them, even if they doesn't have the hit name anymore.
Either way, competition is good, and the end result is likely to be stronger versions of the games when both Activision and MTV issue the next iterations of their dueling titles.
Stand back. It's going to be guitar battles to the death.
Even as Activision and its RedOctane publishing arm have had a great couple of weeks of sales of their recently released hit, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, some fans of the game have been complaining about its quality control problems.
On forums and on game blogs, some users are reporting that wireless versions of the game's guitar aren't working properly.
Some 'Guitar Hero III' users are reporting problems with their guitars
(Credit: Activision)"I was having some real problems once I hit tiers 4 and 5 on medium," wrote Mark Methenitis on his blog, Law of the Game. "I found that the red and yellow buttons were not registering being pressed. After disassembling and re-assembling the guitar, the problem continued."
The issue, the theory goes, has to do with the contact points on the wireless guitars' detachable neck. The result? That some measurable percentage of the time, the buttons don't respond as they should.
"When I hold down the red fret button sometimes, it doesn't respond," wrote a user known as SpyroTheDragon on the official GuitarHero.com forums.
"You know why this happens? Because they thought a detachable neck would be a good idea for PINS AND METAL DOT CONTACTS," answered another forum participant, vsTerminus.
And still another user posted similar unhappiness on the blog, splith.org: "I've noticed some flakiness in the frets while I was playing. I would hold down certain frets and the game would not respond."
In many of these cases, the users reported that upon returning their original guitars, their replacements would have better success. So if true, that does point to poor quality control at manufacture, and not to some across-the-board defect.
And of course, this is by no means the first measurable quality control problem in the industry. For example, Microsoft had a great deal of trouble with the Xbox 360, as has been widely reported.
But it's unfortunate for a company like Activision that some of the good will that its new game got upon release--especially as measured by the strong initial sales--is being squandered on poor quality control.
Let's hope Activision and RedOctane will be quick to allay users' concerns.
A call to RedOctane for comment was not immediately returned.
Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 were big hits for Harmonix, and now the company is going even further with its newest game. Today, Harmonix announced Rock Band, a music game for the PlayStation 3 and 360 that combines guitars, drums, and singing into a mutant offspring of Guitar Hero, Karaoke Revolution, and Taiko Drum Master.
Like the name implies, Rock Band will focus on cooperating with friends as players take lead/bass/rhythm guitars, drums, and vocals and work together to rock out. Guitar, drum, and microphone peripherals will all be available, but you won't need them all at once to play the game. Online play will let players take their favorite instruments and play with friends across the country, a first in the Guitar Hero genre.
Harmonix is working with EMI Music, Hollywood Records, Sony BMG Music, Universal Music Enterprises, and Rhino Entertainment to secure the rights to the ton of hit songs spanning the different rock genres. The music labels also are providing the original master recordings for several songs for use in the game itself. This is a big change from Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2, where Harmonix produced new tracks for most of the games' songs.
Rock Band is scheduled to ship for the 2007 holiday season, so you still have several months to wait. Of course, you could use that time to learn how to sing or play guitar or drums and start your own actual rock band. Either way, please don't cover any Fallout Boy.
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