With the release of Rock Band 3, Dance Central, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, DJ Hero 2, and Power Gig in the last month, you would be forgiven for thinking the music genre is pretty healthy. However, according to a report on Gamasutra, the total earnings of the genre has dropped by more than 50% since last year.
The Gamastura article records the music genre as raking in $1.6 billion in 2008, helped by sales of instrument bundle sets of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Since then, the genre earned $870 million in 2009, but as of this writing music games have yet to break the $400 million mark. With these numbers, it’s not a huge surprise that parent company Viacom is looking to sell off Guitar Hero and Rock Band creator Harmonix, despite the critical acclaim of their latest games, Rock Band 3 and Dance Central (well, everybody but Jay seemed to like Dance Central at least).
How do you readers feel about music games? Are you planning to pick up any for the holidays? If not, is there anything the genre can do to get your attention again?
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