Guitar Hero World Tour
Another interesting excerpt in Matt's NPD post concerns sales of Guitar Hero World Tour. Here's an excerpt:According to an Activision press release, Guitar Hero III sold 1.39 million units and generated $115 million at retail in its first week. It also launched in complete form on four platforms: PS2, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.
...For a comparable seven day period this year, Guitar Hero: World Tour sold 534,000 units and generated $67.3 million at retail. By units and revenue, the launch of GHWT lags significantly behind the launch of GH3.
Ouch.
Matt says that he believes "brand fatigue" has set in, but I think in Activision's case, it's more brand dilution, not fatigue. Rock Band doesn't seem to have any brand "fatigue" at this point. Activision, though, seems determined to shove a little plastic guitar controller up the ass of every single person in this country, and if they have to release 10 different games to do it, then so be it.
I think the biggest public relations coup in this entire rivalry between franchises has been this: every time Activision honks talk about Guitar Hero, they talk about how much revenue they can generate, and every time MTV or Harmonix talk about the game, they talk about how they're reinventing and improving the musical experience.
Maybe the guys at Neversoft are all in bands, too. I've never heard anyone talk about it, so I don't know.
That's something else. Activision has seemingly done everything they can to make Guitar Hero a franchise associated with Activision, not with Neversoft. That's exactly the opposite of what MTV has done with Rock Band--it's clearly defined as a product of Harmonix. Their expertise is clearly associated with the quality of the game.
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