advertisement

Rock Band franchise joins $1 billion club

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Mar 26, 2009 11:13 am PT

MTV Games and Harmonix's four-piece rhythm game achieves sales milestone 15 months after launch; 40 million downloadable songs sold.

In January 2008, Activision announced that the Guitar Hero franchise, purchased along with RedOctane in May 2006 for nearly $100 million, had achieved $1 billion in sales in North America. The feat came 26 months after the Harmonix Music Systems-created initial installment shipped for the PlayStation 2, and nearly three months after the Neversoft-developed Guitar Hero III made its cross-platform debut.

Now, the original Guitar Hero creator has struck gold twice. MTV Games said today that Harmonix's Rock Band franchise has logged in excess of $1 billion in sales in North America, according to the NPD Group. Purchased by MTV Games for $175 million in September 2006, the original Rock Band was shipped by Harmonix to rave reviews 15 months ago. Rock Band 2 made its Xbox 360 debut in September 2008, with PlayStation 3, Wii, and PlayStation 2 installments following later that year.

In addition to the sales announcement, MTV Games provided a stats breakdown of the Rock Band franchise. More than 40 million playable songs have been sold via online networks, the publisher said, noting that the Rock Band franchise was the most lucrative game across all genres in the US during 2008, according to NPD. As of March 24, 2009, Rock Band and its follow-up feature 614 total songs from 269 different artists. The publisher also said that 11 albums have now been released for the series.

MTV Games and Harmonix said in January that they do not plan on releasing a third full installment in the Rock Band franchise this year. Instead, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based developer is at work on the "all-new" The Beatles: Rock Band, which is expected to arrive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii on September 9. Rock Band: Unplugged, developed by Backbone Entertainment, is expected to arrive for the PSP later this year, along with the DLC compilation Rock Band Track Pack: Classic Rock for consoles on May 19.

46 Comments

  • Carpe_Noctum

    Posted Mar 29, 2009 3:18 pm PT

    40 million songs DLC'd, crazy. It's like printing money for them. I paid for 1 song and that is my cap on wasting money.

  • Eastcoast93

    Posted Mar 29, 2009 2:48 pm PT

    great game... congrats harmonix....gives us some free dlc for rockband 1 as a celebration bonus ^^...plspls...your awesomeeeee!!!

  • bassmaniac20005

    Posted Mar 29, 2009 9:32 am PT

    Glad to see Harmonix get $1 billion in 15 months.

    Now gimme some Zeppelin!

  • truthbetold101

    Posted Mar 28, 2009 12:11 am PT

    HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... there neerly identicly haha.... a tad bit different in timing, and different quality instruments. oh and i guess the drums on rb2 only have 4 pads but w/e lol. HONESTLY NOW..... who plays rb to buy a freakn 5000$ jacket haha, and who plays ghwt to try to make a song and fail miserably!!!!!!! lol thats what i thought +)

  • cyrus151

    Posted Mar 27, 2009 6:47 pm PT

    i hate rock band

  • Ozzie234

    Posted Mar 27, 2009 5:17 pm PT

    And by the way, RB2 > GHWT ????

    EVERYTHING'S BETTER THAN GHWT!!

    BIG DEAL.

  • Ozzie234

    Posted Mar 27, 2009 5:15 pm PT

    Who cares? Nothing will beat Guitar Hero 3 (or 2, for that matter). Best songs. Best engine. Coolest charts. No lame band crap. Not too much DLC. Best difficulty level.

    Simply the tops.

    Nothing will beat it... except if Activision decides Guitar Hero 5 will be a continuation.... we'll see. (holding my thumbs).

  • discjockey14

    Posted Mar 27, 2009 9:55 am PT

    @joelgargan

    id like 2 see some devil wears prada, uderoath, bring me the horizon, slipknot, skylit drive etc. more music along the scremo side or at least me scremo dlc. they hav lik only 2 scremo songs on the rockband store... but 2 be fair most people dont lik that kind of music

  • discjockey14

    Posted Mar 27, 2009 9:47 am PT

    @ monkeyluffy ur kiddin, right? cus u hear scremo all the time on the radio? no wait, thats most the songs on gh and rockband. i mean i lik rockband and gh but i get a little tired of the same over rated songs over and over again. but i do give rockband and gh credit 4 makin really awesome games though

  • rockstar_88

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 11:07 pm PT

    I may be a war veteran, but if I ever met the creators of Rock Band, I would go up to them and tell them "Thank you for what you've done for this country."

  • joelgargan

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 10:57 pm PT

    @discjockey14

    Please, tell me what music YOU would like added to the Rockband or Guitar hero playlist (not saying i like the current lists).

  • monkeyluffy

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 10:47 pm PT

    at discjockey14

    if their was a definition for over rated and sellout music it would be screamo

  • eternity21

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 8:15 pm PT

    Keep 'em coming!

  • Superion74

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 8:12 pm PT

    Rock Band 2 >>> GH:WT

  • discjockey14 posted Mar 26, 2009 7:55 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    discjockey14

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 7:55 pm PT (hide)

    i hope they release a rockband scremo or a guitar hero scremo cus im tired of all the ooooooover rated and old songs that r always on the main ones, but of course, over rated and sellout music is wats sells...

  • BattleSword1

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 7:20 pm PT

    That's some crazy money for the best music game I've ever played. RB for the epic win.

  • personmann

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 6:22 pm PT

    GH did not really get the budget or adverts untill the second one, but still a decent showing all around. one thing I am curious about is how much DLC they sold after GHWT came out, because every NPD sales number compairing the two games only count SKUs, and since we have seen that Activision perfers to make consumers buy seperate GH games instead of DLC, it looks like RB will be ahead in that department for some time

  • Articfox6

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 5:22 pm PT

    Hope for rock band 3 they add a rhythm guitar as well as a lead so you can have a 5 man band, or whatever combination, Also more songs and increased character creator and graphics, no more cartoony stuff

  • abeard424

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 5:20 pm PT

    I've bought 46 of those 40 million songs

  • viewtiful_jay

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 5:02 pm PT

    I'm more impressed with the 40m million downloadable songs sold. At $2 a song, not factoring in special pricing for album/pack bundles, thats $80 million right there. Damn near 10% of the 1 billion sold (assuming DLC is part of that 1 billion figure).

Rock Band Quick Links

Summary | Reviews | News | Previews & Features | Images | Videos | Downloads | Answers | Hints & Cheats | Forum | Check Prices

Check Prices: $18.99 – 99.99

GameStop $19.99 SHOP ›
Amazon.com $18.99 SHOP ›
eBay $27.99 SHOP ›
advertisement

Related Unions

Rock Band Boxshot Enlarge the boxshot
Rock Band

Game Stats

Full Game Details »Close
Also on

Games you may like…

Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.

See More Similar Games
advertisement