Guitar Hero faces US struggle

One US analyst has labelled the week one sales debut of new release Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock as dreadful”, pointing to stiff challenges for the music genre in the months ahead.

Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz told CVG that the game sold just 86,000 units in its opening weekend in the US. As noted by Eurogamer, this compares badly with former releases in the series – Guitar Hero: World Tour sold 500k in its first week and Guitar Hero III managed 1.4m.

Warriors of Rock debuted at number six in the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 last month and currently sits in 14th position.

After the huge boom period that accompanied the formative years of the new wave of music games, typified by their introduction of life-like musical instrument peripherals, the genre underwent a rapid downsizing once the global credit crisis kicked in, reducing the appetite for premium game purchases.

Back in October 2008 it looked like music was set to overtake sport to become the second most popular genre in the games industry. However, just a year later Guitar Hero publisher Activision was warning about significant declines in the sector, and in September 2009 US sales tracker NPD reported that sales of music games were down 46 per cent year-on-year.

Both sides of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band divide have tried to put a positive spin on the genre’s future, but big sales disappointments such as The Beatles: Rock Band have painted a far darker picture.