Guitar Hero III the First Game to $1 Billion In Sales 106
The Opposable Thumbs blog reports that Guitar Hero III has reached a financial milestone, becoming the first individual video game to reach $1 billion in total sales. The number is even higher if you consider the rest of the franchise. In addition to helping drive the video game industry during tough economic times (much like the Wii), it's helping other industries as well: "... aside from the fact that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith had sold three times as many copies as the band's last album during their respective first weeks, musicians whose music is featured in the game has seen a rise in music sales to the tune of 15-843 percent." And CVG notes, "... two-thirds of non-musicians exposed to music games plan to start playing a real instrument in the next couple of years." Also, Rock Band creator Harmonix may be looking into a partnership with the record labels to sell music for use outside of the games.
I call foul (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone correct my numbers if I'm wrong but Wii Fit has roughly 13.9m sales total at a cost of about $90 per game plus balance board so $1.2b. I'll ignore Wii Sports as it comes with every Wii. If Guitar Hero is being measured to include the hardware addons, I'm only seeing roughly 4.2m across the Wii, 360, and PS3 total. That means $238 per sale of Guitar Hero. These numbers are based off of vgchartz's website for total sales (seen on the expanded weekly chart).
If they want to include hardware with a game then maybe all Wii purchases were actually to purchase Wii Sports to a tune of 40.9m sales at $250 a sale so $10.2b.
GH = Sight Reading (Score:2, Interesting)
I also have eight years of guitar playing (mostly original compositions in a few indie rock and punk bands) and six years of violin/fiddle from when I was younger (classical ensembles and quartets).
Interestingly, I think that I use what I learned from violin playing more when I play GH. That's because you know what I realized GH really is?
Sight reading.
It's vertical sight reading instead of horizontal, but still the same thing (and better in some ways, since you don't have to flip your own pages). Being able to see a line coming and mentally prepare my fingers for the actions they're about to perform is exclusively what I did on violin (not so much on guitar).
You're right about the big difference between guitar and guitar-hero, of course - five buttons does not equate to six strings and 22 frets as far as movements your hands make. However, Guitar Hero is great for teaching two things that definitely come in handy for work - coordination of two hands (one strumming, one making movements on the fretboard), and proper timing (because I'm sure you're annoyed as I am when you're trying to jam with a guitarist that has no rhythm).
For people who are just learning the instrument and may be interested in reading tab or musical score, the sight reading aspect of GH is valuable as well.
The learning curve is definitely steep (as with all instruments), but I have personally witnessed two people pick up real guitar because of how much fun they have with GH. Seems that they're sticking with it, too.