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Pachter: Music decline caused flat September sales in US

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Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has pinned flat September sales in the US on the decline of the music genre in general.

"We expected far higher sales for the month, as we succumbed to much of the hype surrounding the relatively high-profile launches of The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5," he said.

"We had expected the former to sell 1.3 million units, and thought that sales of the disc would drive sales of older Rock Band bundles; instead, the game sold fewer than half our estimate, and overall sales came in at $73 million, well below our $140 million estimate.

"Similarly, we thought that the giveaway of a voucher for Guitar Hero Van Halen would have great appeal, and would drive Guitar Hero 5 sales. The game sold fewer than our 700,000 unit estimate, and overall Guitar Hero sales were only $43 million, well below our $75 million unit estimate," he added.

He also said that Activision's music games sales could be down as much as 25 per cent on last year.

As shown in the NPD this week, US sales we up only 5 percent over last year.

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The Beatles: Rock Band

PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, Nintendo Wii

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Patrick Garratt

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Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.

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