Guitar Hero and Rock Band sales down 49% YoY

Maybe its because people are realizing its a stupid fad *crosses fingers*

Here’s a mad idea. Give those of us who were their from the off the music we had at the beginning. Rock, Metal & Blues and stop trying to fleece us with ‘popular’ artists. Metallica was a great return to form and, while of no interest to me personally, hopefully Van Halen and The Beatles will be as high a standard. Strangely quiet on the VH front, though.

The best bet, as I’ve said before, is to release games by genre. As someone who loved the early GH games and Metallica I have no interest in Modest Mouse or Blur. Maybe then they’ll see what sells and what people want. The DLC is still small beans compared to the ‘live’ market.

How are Metallica, Van Halen and The Beatles not “popular”? The Beatles are quite possibly the most popular band… ever.

The reduction in sales has nothing to do with the songs they’re selling. It has to do with the worldwide recession that means *everything* is selling less than it used to.

I think the funniest thing about your post is that you’re saying they’d sell more units by signing less popular music, which makes absolutely no sense at all. *You* might not like Blur or Modest Mouse, but *you* are not the only person playing it.

Sorry, that’s not what I said. I fully admit that these particular artists are not for me…personally. Regardless of how they are regarded by the wider community. I’ve never had much time for those particular bands but I would never be so arrogant to suggest that just because they aren’t for me the games should never be made nor am I dismissing MM or Blur et al just because I don’t like them. What I’m saying is that if a game were sold by genre instead of trying to cram in as much variety as possible, no bad thing in itself, they might be able to ‘zero in ‘ on a particular audience for any given style. But then you’d get the argument for why is ‘X’ band on the game disc for ‘Y’.
And as for the recession, you should know by now that the game companies don’t believe this affects them, they’re the new gods.

Or a more obvious reason is they sell like like everygame released more than 6 months ago ??

Why would GH4 keeps the same sales less than 3 months before GH5′s release ?

Likewise with a new rock band beatles title soon enough

@The_Deleted

With the original games and dlcs , each of both series features more than enough music of various genres , and a healthy quota of mega stars and smaller groups .

It’s just so obvious that each track and music genre may not find the same public and tastes .

Hell I dont remember any other game allowing me to play a X-Japan song before Rock band , a group with a huge japanese following , but obscure for most non-japanophiles or otaku .

“What I’m saying is that if a game were sold by genre instead of trying to cram in as much variety as possible, no bad thing in itself, they might beable to ‘zero in ‘ on a particular audience for any given style.”

That’s the the band licensed titles are for.

See, this is why I’m more personally put out. I don’t have Braodband so can’t access a lot of the stuff I’d like. Be great to get the Maiden track pack and see if there was any Polysics. Still, working again now, so won’t be too long.

@ Michael Conner:
I agree with the licensed bands, but it does bring me back to our point about personal taste. Not everyone would go mad for the Metallica release and I’d dare say The Beatles will sell by the fuck load given their stature. But if a release was broken down by genre I reckon they’d make just as sizeable a profit.

They’ve over saturated the market.

No more ROOM for anymore Rockband or GH anything, 1 guest bedroom full of GH and Rockband accessories, so NO MORE. Now it looks like only Niche people will buying what they like. Beatles fans will go ga ga, but Non-Beatles fan, will care less…and When HannaH Montana Lavender Rock Band Kit and GH Kit comes out, only those Fans will go ga-ga for that…for me I am done…I am back to playing my Real Piano Keyboard…Until they come out with a Piano Keyboard Game that is..LOL!

I always thought that the band games were a fad. There is only so much improvement you can do that will make people buy the games over and over.
In this genre, it would be better to keep releasing DLC until you come up with a major improvement, or do something niche like a beatles game.

I saw the aerosmith bundle for dirt cheap at K-mart the other day