Music Games Down 6% in 2008
Given the dominance of a relatively few games, is this just a blip caused by new release patterns or is the sector saturated and near its peak adoption? Neither is good news for a music industry just starting to add music via games sales and royalties to its balance sheet.
Music remains the top selling game genre with 16% market share according to the NPD Group. But 2008 releases of MTV's "Rock Band 2" and "Guitar Hero: World Tour" sold well below 2007 levels by previous editions. Activision's "World Tour" sold 1.5 million units in the US down 55% from "Guitar Hero III" and "Rock Band 2" sold just 809,000 copies in 2008. According to Variety, Disney's "Ultimate Band," Konami's "Rock Revolution" and Nintendo's "Wii Music" were all poor sellers.
