14 DAY TRIAL // Overall, sales of music titles in the United States were down by an astounding 46% and this could spell trouble for Activision, which puts out the Guitar Hero franchise and its spinoffs, and for MTV Games and Harmonix, which are creating the Rock Band series. We already know that Green Day Rock Band is slated to be released in 2010 and MTV Games seems to be convinced that the slump will not be as hard as predicted.
Paul DeGooyer, who is in charge of the Rock Band franchise at MTV Games, has told paidContent that the reduction in the market is real but added that “the download side continues to grow for us.”
The Beatles Rock Band managed to sell more than 1.7 million copies worldwide since its September 2009 release and the specialized music store from Harmonix, which gets weekly updates, now has more than 390 bands features and offers more than 1,000 tracks that can be downloaded individually or in packs.
DeGooyer stated that “The challenge for us in the space is... music fans overall would love to interact with music in this way but may not be able to get over the plastic instrument. The category needs to break out of that core constituency and go beyond that.”
This seems to support rumors, sparked last year, suggesting that Harmonix and MTV Games are working on Rock Band 3 and thinking about introducing features that might teach players how to handle an instrument and get them more involved in the experience of playing live music. The two companies are not commenting on the rumors but an announcement could arrive at E3 this year.
Harmonix is also working on another project, called Rock Band Network, which is set to allow music creators to develop their own content that will then become available to those who own Rock band titles.