Harmonix, creators of runaway success Rock Band, are doing quite well for themselves these days. Not only did they move over a million units of Rock Band since its launch in November, they have also gone double platinum, selling 2.5 million songs over the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network.
All these numbers may sound unimpressive compared to the likes of Halo 3 but you have to remember that Rock Band is a $170 package – that’s more than double the cost of a normal game this generation. To move that amount of product at that cost in under four months is pretty amazing.
Viacom (parent company of Harmoinx) was quite possibly the most impressed by the success of Rock Band. In their recent annual report they promised Harmoinx 208.7 million dollars as a ‘thank you for being a friend’ to be paid out over the course of 2008. That’s a lot of dollars.
I look at that 208.7 million and see the future. That’s Viacom telling Harmonx that they are going to support Rock Band as a platform for the next few years. The Guitar Hero name is powerful and there was a huge chance that Rock Band was going to fail because of its high price point. Luckily a million people thought otherwise (myself included). It’s always nice to see gigantic corporations supporting innovation from the little guys.
[Gamasutra via paidContent]
