14 DAY TRIAL // In spite all the violence people complain the media is conveying into the mind of the young, it seems the fuzzy “Hello Kitty” feeling is still well rooted in people's soul. The “All You Need is Love” DLC for Harmonix's Beatles Rock Band has become the fastest selling DLC in the Rock Band history after only two days.
The first, and up until now, the only DLC available for the game is an Xbox 360-exclusive. If a game has to rank on top of the sales chart, then one that gives the income for charity is definitely one that should do it. According to a Harmonix official press release, which refused to offer an accurate number of items sold, the title has supplied so far Doctors Without Borders with “tens of thousands” of dollars. To add to this figure, a limited supply of a Beatles-themed Xbox was auctioned on eBay and added another $17,300 in the name of charity.
Giving sales to charity will win Harmonix executives points for good behavior, but it won't help them close the gap between them and the competition. The decision to make this release exclusive to only one platform, the Xbox, also seems to set a few doubts about the Harmonix financial planning. But, then again, we don't know what kind of deal Microsoft offered for this privilege.
Activision and its Guitar Hero 5 is still well ahead in sales and it seems like it will take a serious power move to throw them off balance. Harmonix could learn a little bit of the cut-throat mentality from the competition. Activision is generally boycotted by the gamer community and, as recent developments show, is often filed lawsuits against, but it continues to release successful titles that critics and gamers applaud. Nobody may like the public image it has, but it is a successful company, even if it had to take over the role of Faust and sell its soul to the Devil.