Videogames analyst Michael Pachter has spoken to Reuters stating that the reason music game sales have suffered this year is due to “too much content” shipping in previous music games.
According to NPD, only 800,000 people bought Beatles: Rock Band in its first month. This figure “boggles the mind” according to Pachter when compared to the 20 million people who own music games already, as well as the 1.4 million who bought Guitar Hero III in its first month two years ago.
Pachter stated that because franchises such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band had so much value included, gamers aren’t going to be able to justify buying the newer iterations next year. The genre combined made $1.4 billion in 2008, but newer releases haven’t shown similar sales, earning only $700 million this year.
Pachter stated that the genre would level out at around $500-600 million per year in 2010, equalling the yearly income of the Call of Duty franchise. He attributes this drop to an over-saturated market in 2009, with an almost endless stream of music games being released. From Guitar Hero 5, Beatles: Rock Band, DJ Hero and Band Hero, it seems publishers (largely Activision) have seen an opportunity to make a quick buck on the music game genre, but players obviously don’t see the worth of four different music games.
Pachter said:
[Game] publishers have probably done themselves a disservice by giving us way too much value for our money with each of these games.
The value for money comes in the wealth of tracks you get as well as downloadable content that is offered with the game. However, the article mentions that digital music sales have shown “no significant increases in track sales as a result of their inclusion in each… game”, meaning that the in-game songs don’t necessarily push MP3 sales.
As publishers try and sell the next music game, it’s going to be hard for them to justify to the gaming public why they should spend money on yet more expensive hardware, or even £40/$60 for another version of the software. They’re the sort of game that has little longevity; sure they’re fun when with friends, but playing DJ Hero on your own may be the saddest thing in the entire world. It’ll be interesting to see how Activision and Harmonix try to re-energise the genre next year; however I’m worried that there will be a surge of gimmicky products being released to claw back that $1.4 billion sales figure.
Via: Destructoid
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The thing I agree with is the idea of saturation of the music game market. Dee Ellll Seeee anyone?
Dustin Hoffman?!
Instead of Green Day: Rock Band, Harmonix should have made Rock Band 3 number one on their priority list after Beatles came out. the market needs some innovation, stat.
still waiting for something like amplitude or frequenzy, where you actually interact with the music and not just follow it like DDR, guitar hero and rb…
How is DJ Hero? I saw videos and there’s one thing I’m a little confused about.
I’ve been DJ’ing hip hop for 9 years and I’ve been waiting for a game like this since the first Guitar Hero. I heard of a game a while back called “Scratch the Ultimate DJ”. I thought the project was canned completely but apparently there is a new developer and it is slated for release in 2010.
I guess my concerns are similar to NoZart’s. Is there any freestyle sections in DJ Hero where you have control to do as you wish during a song? Can you actually use more/less force on the controller to create higher/lower notes? Does the crossfader actually work well enough to allow you to do intricate cuts like twiddles, crabs and flares etc.?
Basically what I’m asking is this: Can you use the controller like a real turntable and actually do real techniques with it?
If it’s just a gimmicky system where moving the “record” back and forth while holding the button down creates the same sound in a song regardless of force used or crossfader movement then I don’t think it’s something I want to spend my money on. =(
Waiting for “Scratch the Ultimate DJ” might be the better bet for a turntablist. The controller is made by Numark and from what I’ve seen it acts just like a turntable.
Also from the few videos I’ve seen of DJ Hero so far there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hip hop or breakbeat tracks included. Although they could just be showcasing pop mixes in the gameplay videos I’ve seen…
Check out this video of “Scratch The Ultimate DJ” if you’re interested at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZTxd7Twnbw
@Gamblor: you DEFINITELY dont want that game.
playing DJ hero is as similar to actually DJing as playing guitar hero is like playing an actual guitar.
Those sort of games are made for people who actually cannot play the instruments. Every friend of mine who actually plays guitar scoffed at guitar hero.
And btw: by interacting with the music i meant actually forming the parts of a song while playing. When the rythm you tap in CREATES the tracks and you decide how the song actually sounds. DJ hero is (like the whole hero line) a passive music game, where the music dictates what you have to do and thats it. Freestyle and the like are just gimmicks in there to cover that up.
The problem with DJ Hero is that the metaphor doesn’t work.
Pressing plastic buttons on the fret board of a guitar is a metaphor that works, but pressing buttons on top of a spinning record doesn’t.