Quick question: What do Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty 5 and Wrath of the Lich King all have in common? Quite simply, none of them and we repeat, none, have ever achieved a sales target of $1 billion. Activision first announced their entire Guitar Hero franchise to have performed this feat about a year ago and just recently, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock alone accomplished the same. So there you have it: Guitar Hero 3 is the first game to generate $1 billion in sales.
The news came from Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith during his keynote speech at CES ’09. Guitar Hero 3’s release has also had an immense impact on the music industry. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith sold three times more than Aerosmith’s studio album in it’s first week. Artists whose songs featured in Guitar Hero saw download sales increase from 15-843%. World Tour’s ability to generate user-created content spawned 25,000 songs in the first 10 days; there have been 21 million song downloads to date. Griffith also stated that:
“Video games are poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the decade ahead. Music has a history of evolving through technology and we are at the beginning of the latest chapter in that story.”
We’d like to think Rock Band still has a chance after the immense trouncing it faced last year, but unfortunately, we won’t be seeing another sequel this year. Guitar Hero, and the gaming industry in general, are surging ahead, according to Griffith. After the immense number of lay-offs and cut-backs last year, we’re inclined to debate that 2008 didn’t exactly contribute to the 40% growth the industry has seen in the last four years. Regardless, Guitar Hero 3 has set a new milestone, further cementing Activision-Blizzard’s reputation as being the world’s strongest developer. Are you listening, EA and Microsoft?
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