Sales War: Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band

[Emabulator]

GameSpot has posted an article (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6202302.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1) covering a UBS report that Guitar Hero beat Rock Band 2-to-1 in November revenues. Looking deeper in the report reveals that a 30.8% drop in year-on-year earnings has further fueled analyst's concerns that the rhythm-game genre "is past its peak".

According to Schachter, just over 1.7 million Guitar Hero games were sold in the US during November 2008, a 25.3 percent decrease from the nearly 2.3 million the year prior. All Rock Band games, by contrast, sold fewer units by comparison--just 628,452--but saw a massive 64.7 percent increase in sales from the year before.

However, when only revenue is considered, the disparity between the two franchises narrows. Guitar Hero games generated $145.9 million in the US last month, down 19.5 percent from November 2007's $181.1 million. However, thanks to an installed base of instruments, Rock Band games didn't see that much of an uptick, rising just 9.7 percent to $68.7 million during the month.

While impressive, Rock Band and Guitar Hero's combined $214.6 million haul was actually a 12 percent slide from November 2007. More disturbing for Activision is the steep decline in both revenues and units for the Guitar Hero franchise. In November 2007 Guitar Hero III's six SKUs--or individual retail product configurations--generated 1.9 million units in sales, amounting to combined $158.8 million. In October 2008, Guitar Hero World Tour sold just 978,000 units, minting just $109.8 million.This does not bode well for Activision's publishing philosophy of only supporting yearly franchise games (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69344).

[thejeromer]

I'm sorry but the Rock Band franchise stole my heart with the large amount of DLC available, every week.

I was thinking about how much money I've spent on Rock Band DLC the other night and when I realized I've spent over 2x the price of the game itself on DLC, I stopped counting o_O

[JasonSuave]

I wonder if those Guitar Hero revenue numbers subtract out returns due to faulty instruments?

I know that I went through 4 copies of GHWT before I gave up on getting a working set of drums (so I ended up spending $800 in total toward GHWT, but then had $800 in returns). I doubt my net spend of $0 is part of those numbers....

Also I saw probably a dozen returned copies of GHWT as I was returning my own at Best Buy, so I know that GHWT had a much higher return rate than RB2..

[critch]

I'd bet that when you add in all the money made from DLC, Rock Band is killing Guitar Hero.

[Gnomesbane]

I own both. I actually enjoy playing Guitar Hero over Rock Band... but RB has all the DLC and so that is the game I spend the most money on and the most time playing by far.

[AspectVoid]

I would love to see Rock Band's intake of money when DLC is added in. Just selling the physical product is only part of the model, and this in this kind of report, DLC should be added in as well.

[revelation]

Given how woeful the game is outside of song selection, it shouldn't be a surprise. We had Rock Band 1 get released here last month, a week ahead of Guitar Hero World Tour. It's amazing to see how primitive GHWT looks despite it being around the same time as the second RB iteration (for you guys).

What would be most interesting is seeing the international sales. You'd be damned lucky to find a Guitar Hero World Tour set around here at the moment with Rock Band stacked to the rafters.

[Loganrapp]

It's competition. Plus, Guitar Hero World Tour is newer.

Rock Band 3 will come out and they'll take the lead, and GHWT2 will do the same.

I prefer the game of Rock Band. The presentation is much cleaner and intuitive. Not so with GHWT, but that's just one consumer.

Neither are going anywhere, and neither are going to fall out of favor with the market. But that they both exist will have the companies one-upping each other with each iteration.

This is a good thing.

[Grumsh]

I would like to see an actual comparison of total units sold. Looking at gross profits is misleading since the majority of the people who got the full kit of RB1 would be daft to rebuy the whole kit for RB2 when all they need is the disc for $59.99. So if for example 1,000 people purchased RB1 for $180.00 and those same 1,000 purchased RB2 for $60 total gross sales would be down, but units moved would still be the same.

[Whimbrel]

If it is over the peak now, it won't be for lack of effort to cram it down our throats at every available opportunity for the last couple of years. I was shopping for snow boots for my son this afternoon and they were selling Guitar Hero pants as lounge wear.

[beefyjr]

I think part of Guitar Hero's slide is due to the fact that they released something that cost almost twice as much as last year's version, part of it is a lack of consistent availability, part of it is oversaturation on their end and part of it is the economy: they're a big ticket item compared to $60 games.

[riposte101]

The freshness of these games has reached a tipping point. The downward decline has begun. This will continue until they change up the gameplay in some way to make it fresh again.

[Roc Ingersol]

Yeah, that holds so true for sports games too.

Err....

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

The download content has a huge impact on their revenues, and probably even has a better profit margin. The game itself has dev costs and support, plus parts and packaging.

The download content has royalties, some development time, and a small delivery cost with no distribution and retail channel.

They might sell download content for ages after they stop having significant new game purchases. It's a lot like console hardware in that. They need to sell a base of musical hardware and the core game, but they make a lot more revenues on all the things they can sell afterward.

But, without knowing how much download content they sold they can at least apply for a bailout from the government. :p