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'Guitar Hero: Van Halen' Arrives As Music Video Game Sales Slide

December 23, 2009

The Pulse of Radio reports: Guitar Hero: Van Halen arrived in stores on Tuesday (December 22),but it's not clear whether the heavily-hyped new installment in the billion-dollar music video game franchise will inspire new players to pick up the game or a new console. According to Reuters, sales of music video games in 2009 are expected to top out at around $700 million, a full 50 percent less than the $1.4 billion they raked in last year. That's despite — or perhaps because of — an influx of new titles in the past 12 months, including Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Band Hero and DJ Hero.

The Beatles: Rock Band was expected to sell at least a million copies, but stalled at around 800,000. While the game was given positive reviews, the cost, the recession and the fact that many older BEATLES fans are not gamers were said to contribute to the lower sales.

Likewise, DJ Hero was predicted to sell 1.6 million, but expectations for that game have been cut to less than half that.

Guitar Hero 5 did move half a million copies in its first month, despite outcries over a Kurt Cobain avatar being able to perform other artists' songs.

Even with the flood of music video games in 2009, a GREEN DAY edition of Rock Band is on the schedule for 2010, with more titles yet to be announced.

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