New Delhi: The music-game category was one area where the revenues in 2008 were at a soaring high at around $1.4 billion. However, the year 2009 didn’t seem all that good in terms of sales for the music video games.
By the time 2009 winds up, experts says the sales might just reach half of 2008 – $700 million — despite such high-profile releases this fall as “The Beatles: Rock Band,” “Guitar Hero 5,” “DJ Hero” and “Band Hero,” not to mention “Guitar Hero: Van Halen,” which is due Tuesday (December 22).
The Beatles game, while selling a respectable 800,000 units of its various versions so far, missed the 1 million mark. “Guitar Hero 5″ sold 500,000 units in its first month, compared with the 1.4 million “Guitar Hero III” moved two years ago in its first month. Similar is the story for others as well.
According to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, the reason for this plunge is: Too many games with too much music in too short a time.
“(Game) publishers have probably done themselves a disservice by giving us way too much value for our money with each of these games,” Pachter says.
In spite of all this, it doesn’t mean the music-game category is a quickly fading fad with no future. No one expected the same level of record-breaking sales achieved in 2008, and Pachter expects the category will level off at about $500 million-$600 million per year, which he calls a “nice, healthy” genre.
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