Kotaku: ghiii

Guitar Hero Goes $1 Billion

Mark Wilson — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:30:44 MST

Around 26 months ago, Guitar Hero was an instant cult classic. Today, it's officially a $1 billion franchise. Apparently this milestone comes in video game record time (not partially fueled by the ease with which developers can churn out new versions of the game). In addition, since the launch of Guitar Hero III, users have downloaded five million songs (we're guessing they mean just for GHIII, but the press release is a bit unclear). If so, that total is double the figure that Rock Band has released (granted, GHIII has been out longer).

Activision pats themselves on the back after the jump. Rock Band awaits penalties for extended celebration.

Guitar Hero(R) Franchise Surpasses $1 Billion in North America in Record 26 Months, According to the NPD Group Calendar Year North American Retail Sales for Guitar Hero(R) III: Legends of Rock(TM) Set New Industry Record
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan 21, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATVI) today announced that the Guitar Hero(R) franchise has set an industry record, surpassing $1 billion in North American retail sales in just 26 months, according to The NPD Group.

Additionally, Guitar Hero(R) III: Legends of Rock(TM) was the #1 title in units and dollars for calendar year 2007, making it the #1 best-selling video game of all time in a single calendar year.

Since its initial release in fall 2005, the Guitar Hero franchise has sold in excess of 14 million units in North America alone, according to The NPD Group. In 10 weeks since the game's launch, consumers have already downloaded more than five million songs.

"Guitar Hero is one of the biggest brands and one of the most powerful distribution platforms in all of entertainment today," said Michael Griffith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Activision Publishing, Inc. "Guitar Hero's popularity with broad audiences is a confirmation that video games have become a true mass medium."

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007.

Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.activision.com.

RedOctane Wants You To Play Music

Mark Wilson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:40:22 MST

The story doesn't seem like a big deal: RedOctane partners with NAMM (the giant International Music Products Association) to promote music awareness and creation in the "Wanna Play?" campaign. Big whoop, right? But when you realize that RedOctane is NAMM's first ever video game industry partner, the story's significance shifts a bit. In partnering for cross promotional events and kiosks, not only is NAMM acknowledging RedOctane's ability to recruit youngsters to play music (and buy real instruments), they are also publicly acknowledging RedOctane's (and Guitar Hero's) legitimate seat at the giant table that is the musical world. It's like they're holding hands in public or something and NAMM is totally cool with it.

RedOctane Adds GHIII Backing To Music-Making Campaign [gamasutra]

Black Friday Deals At Red Octane Revealed

Mark Wilson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:20:07 MST

Red Octane is getting into the Black Friday Madness with some pretty decent savings on Guitar Hero III bundles. Grab the Guitar Hero X-plorer Ultimate Bundle for Xbox 360, one guitar and Guitar Hero II and III for $140, or about $40 in savings. Unfortunately, your basic kits didn't get any cheaper. But we listed all the deals after the jump, so take your pick—pun definitely intended.

Guitar Hero® Kramer® Striker Ultimate Bundle for PlayStation®2 Our Price: $199.99
Guitar Hero® X-plorer Ultimate Bundle for Xbox 360®
Our Price: $139.98

Guitar Hero® III R.O.E. Bundle for PlayStation®2
Our Price: $119.99

Guitar Hero® III Wireless Bundle with Rechargeable Battery Kit for PLAYSTATION®3
Our Price: $129.97

Guitar Hero® III Wireless Bundle with Rechareable Battery Kit for PlayStation®2
Our Price: $119.97

Guitar Hero™ Dual Rechargeable Battery Kit
Our Price: $29.99
Free Ground Shipping on Orders over $100.00!*

Red Octane Black Friday [redoctane]

Some Guitar Hero Bundles Lack The Bundle

Mark Wilson — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:20:58 MST

Apparently some Guitar Hero III bundles are missing the game. As reported by our sister site The Consumerist, an EB Games employee looked on as his manager opened every Xbox 360 GH3 bundle box they had following a customer complaint, finding that none of them had the game inside.

The kicker? Due to EB Games policy, the customer couldn't return the product (even in light of certain evidence). Shame on EB Games? Yeah, but bigger shame on the customer for giving in. Unless, of course, the guy was lying and the missing games were just an incredible coincidence. Buyers beware. Open GH3 in the store or suffer from a potentially lethal mix of bad luck and assholedom.

Open Guitar Hero III Inside The Store, Some Boxes May Be Empty [via gaygamer]

October Software Sales Predicted Up 50%

Mark Wilson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:20:32 MST

Michael "Mad Hoodie" Pachter is calling it again. This time, he's predicting the NPD to announce that software sales have increased 50% from October of last year. In hard numbers that means he's calling October 2007 to have $555 million ins sales, up from $369 million October 2006. The even better news is that most of this $555 million would be new money, with $425 million of it from 360, PS3, Wii, PSP and the DS. But the juiced-up numbers will mostly be attributed to one game...place your bets now...

Guitar Hero III. Guess correctly? We hope so. Because we told you before and, apparently, there will be a quiz.

Analyst: October Software Sales Up 50% [nextgeneration]

GHIII Wii Only Offers Mono Sound

Mark Wilson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:40:45 MST

The consumer is officially prepared for the Wii graphics letdown, and if a you buy a game on the Wii that's uglier than the PS3/360 version, you wouldn't be surprised. But when Guitar Hero III is found to only play mono sound on the Wii (as opposed to the box-advertised stereo and Dolby Pro Logic II options), heads turn. According to one affected forum member on the Guitar Hero site, Activision is "looking into it right now," and the implication is that some horrible software problem is preventing users from playing a music game in its full spectrum—not that the Wii is incapable of the task.

No surround sound? [via opposablethumbs]

Guitar Hero 3 DLC Leaked?

Mark Wilson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:20:46 MDT

One good soul playing close attention to the leaderboards has noticed a few songs that aren't in the standard Guitar Hero III track list. So what's this mean? DLC for everyone*!! Specifically, users have spotted three more songs from both the Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. But the biggest surprise may be that boss battle tracks are listed as well, so it will be interesting to see how the content is dealt with from a purchaser's standpoint. Hit the jump for a complete list.

*"everyone" most probably refers only to those who pay to be part of this privileged group.

Foo Fighters
* "All My Life"
* "This is a Call"
* "The Pretender"

Velvet Revolver

* "Slither"
* "She Builds Quick Machines"
* "Messages"

Boss Battles

* "Tom Morello Guitar Battle"
* "Slash Guitar Battle"
* "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"

FUTURE DLC LEAKED!!! PIC INSIDE!! [via opposablethumbs]

Frankenreview, Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360)

Mark Wilson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:00:04 MDT

A war is brewing. Just as Man fights over the superiority of various football teams, cars, female hair colors and brand of fiber supplement, so too will Man fight over whether Guitar Hero is a better series than Rock Band.

While Rock Band won't be on store shelves for a few weeks, we do have at least 50% of the equation to ignite the flame wars. So hit the jump for our Frankenreview of the Harmonixless Guitar Hero III—all the answers to all of life's problems in five short paragraphs.

PlanetXbox360
Some veterans of the series may think that the buttons on their new guitar are sticking but that is actually a gameplay feature that Neversoft included to help new gamers feel comfortable in the series. The time limit to hit the correct key has been increased by what feels like a good bit of time, now hitting those impossible guitar solos is much easier. At first I felt like the game was too easy but the developers helped offset this issue by amping up the actual song difficulty.

Yahoo
The new guitar (we tried the wireless Les Paul that comes with the 360) feels a lot sturdier, with crisp precise controls and a suitably tense whammy bar. The detachable face plate will allow for some slick customization for people who aren't content with stickers. And being able to detach the neck will make it much easier to bring your controller to a friend's house...Give us this solidly built wireless guitar, Activision, and we won't begrudge you the extra profit.

OpposableThumbs
This is the first Guitar Hero game to venture online, and it's about time. While the face-offs and battles I've been able to participate in have been fun and largely lag-free, you're forced to search for your own games: the quick match option that is supposed to allow you to jump into a game quickly is completely broken....Also keep in mind that the co-op career mode, complete with exclusive unlockable songs, is offline only. That means that if you want to play these songs (and you will), you'll need a friend with a second guitar and time to unlock them with you.
GamesSpot
It's...disappointing that Activision has finally decided to corporate up the Guitar Hero experience with a fair amount of lame product placement and dynamic in-game advertising. It's one thing to get branded guitars and get Guitar Center to sponsor your in-game shop— it's quite another to have several of the game's environments feature billboards that display ads dynamically, and logos for Pontiac and Axe Body Spray that pop up all over the place. It even goes so far as to have Axe-sponsored guitars you can buy in-game, and Axe-sponsored go-go dancers prancing about the stage while you play. Gross.

GamesRadar
By going real with the songs, next-gen with the graphics and online with the gameplay, it leaves the wishlist relatively barren. At the same time, it's not delivering us much new on the gameplay front, and in fact lags a bit in terms of smart strumming mechanics.
The most noticeable difference to me in Guitar Hero III (and Rock Band, for that matter) has to be the hefty amounts of original studio dubs. I never had issues with playing covers before I'd experienced something better. And now it's really hard to go back.

GHIII Target Bundle Offers Double Trouble (Second Guitar)

Mark Wilson — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:00:55 MDT

We're not sure how this news slipped by us, but we wanted to let potential PS2 Guitar Hero III buyers know about yet another exclusive GHIII bundle on the market. While Wal-mart may be offering GHIII with a wired controller, Target is offering a Dueling Axe Pack version packaged with not one but two SG controllers for $110 (or $100 this week). While the guitars are wired, tethering you to your PS2 like a rocker on a heroin drip, it's not a bad deal if you haven't owned a Guitar Hero game before and wanted the option to play with a buddy. Yes, we did just say heroin and buddy within the same breath.

Exclusive Target Guitar Hero III Bundle With Two Wired Guitars [gamelife]

New Guitar Hero III Tracks Revealed

Mike Fahey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 08:20:24 MDT

Looks like that leaked Guitar Hero III track list from a couple weeks back might be closer to reality than we thought. While the new press release from Activision doesn't reveal specific song tiers, it does add seventeen new songs, all of which were included on the rumored list. Still the leaked list has seventy songs, while I am only counting fifty-nine in the press release, so I'll leave it to you junior detectives to work out the discrepancies. Seven of the new songs are master tracks from the original artists, including Sonic Youth's 'Cool Thing', Aerosmith's 'Same Old Song and Dance", and The Killers' 'When You Were Young', which will be stuck in my head the rest of the day. Covers include White Zombie's 'Black Sunshine' and 'Devil Went Down To Georgia' made famous by the Charlie Daniels Band. Living in the south, I can tell you right now that if the Devil cover sucks the folks at Activision better start keeping an eye out for suspicious looking pickup trucks in their vicinity. You don't screw around with a song so important that it's projected onto a mountain with lasers every weekend. Hit the jump for the full list, new and old.

Activision Shreds Additional Songs To Setlist For Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock Master Tracks from Aerosmith, The Killers, Slipknot, and Sonic Youth Added
SUNNYVALE, CA - October 3, 2007 - Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today additional songs to be included in the main set list for the highly-anticipated title, Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock. While delivering more master tracks than ever before, strategic partnerships have been secured with all the major and independent record labels and publishers to allow unrivaled access to their vast catalogs of music, along with supplying artists' original recordings for even greater authenticity.

The additional tracks include:

· Same Old Song and Dance (by Aerosmith)
· Helicopter (by Bloc Party)
· Stricken (by Disturbed)
· Monsters (by Matchbook Romance)
· Before I Forget (by Slipknot)
· Kool Thing (by Sonic Youth)
· When You Were Young (by The Killers)
· Devil Went Down to Georgia (as made famous by Charlie Daniels Band)
· Sunshine of Your Love (as made famous by Cream)
· Holiday in Cambodia (as made famous by Dead Kennedys)
· Cliffs of Dover (as made famous by Eric Johnson)
· Hit Me with Your Best Shot (as made famous by Pat Benetar)
· Black Magic Woman (as made famous by Santana)
· Story of My Life (as made famous by Social Distortion)
· Pride and Joy (as made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughn)
· The Seeker (as made famous by The Who)
· Black Sunshine (as made famous by White Zombie)

In addition to the newly announced tracks, previously announced songs in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock include:

· Miss Murder (by AFI)
· Minus Celsius (by Backyard Babies)
· Sabotage (by Beastie Boys)
· Hier Kommt Alex (by Die Toten Hosen)
· Through Fire and Flames (by Dragonforce)
· In the Belly of a Shark (by Gallows)
· Welcome to The Jungle (by Guns N' Roses)
· Avalancha (by Heroes Del Silencio)
· Take This Life (by In Flames)
· Number of the Beast (by Iron Maiden)
· Ruby (by Kaiser Chiefs)
· Closer (by Lacuna Coil)
· Cult of Personality (by Living Colour)
· One (by Metallica)
· Knights of Cydonia (by Muse)
· Mauvais Garcon (by NAAST)
· Even Flow (by Pearl Jam)
· Lay Down (by Priestess)
· Bulls on Parade (by Rage Against The Machine)
· 3's and 7's (by Queens of the Stone Age)
· Suck My Kiss (by Red Hot Chili Peppers)
· Generation Rock (by Revolverheld)
· Raining Blood (by Slayer)
· Cherub Rock (by Smashing Pumpkins)
· Radio Song (by Superbus)
· The Metal (by Tenacious D)
· I'm in the Band (by The Hellacopters)
· Anarchy in the U.K. (by The Sex Pistols)
· Reptillia (by The Strokes)
· Paint It Black (by The Rolling Stones)
· My Name is Jonas (by Weezer)
· Slash's Original Boss Battle Recording
· Tom Morello's Original Boss Battle Recording
· School's Out (as made famous by Alice Cooper)
· Paranoid (as made famous by Black Sabbath)
· Cities on Flame (as made famous by Blue Oyster Cult)
· Slow Ride (as made famous by Foghat)
· Barracuda (as made famous by Heart)
· Rock and Roll All Nite (as made famous by Kiss)
· Mississippi Queen (as made famous by Mountain)
· Rock You Like a Hurricane (as made famous by Scorpions)
· La Grange (as made famous by ZZ Top)

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will include explosive new content and features including a multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a host of exclusive unlockable content and visually stunning rock venues. Expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. While continuing to retain all the key features from their prior legendary performances, fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a killer set list from many of the most popular rock songs ever recorded.

For the first time ever, Guitar Hero fans will also be able to thrash and burn with new wireless guitar controllers available for each platform, including exclusive Gibson Guitar's Les Paul model for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii™ home video game system from Nintendo, and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. PlayStation®2 gamers will also get to shred on a new exclusive shape, Gibson's Kramer guitar, popularized by hard rockers and known for its body design, pickups, electronics and construction for furious finger fretting.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, published by RedOctane® and developed by Neversoft, is rated 'T' for Teen by the ESRB and will be available October 28, 2007. For more information about the Guitar Hero franchise, please visit the dedicated community site: www.guitarhero.com.