Rock Band 2 Sells 2 Million, Still "Weaker Than Expected"

Rock Band 2

Although it seems clear that Guitar Hero continues to win the battle of the bands with Rock Band, Viacom is mostly satisfied with Rock Band 2's performance thus far.

According to Gamasutra, Viacom has said during its fourth quarter earnings report that Rock Band 2 sales have passed 2 million since the game's launch last Septemeber. Now, they did say that's a lower-than-expected number, but they attribute this to the dropping economy during the latter part of 2008. Even so, the game's success helped the company to an increase in full-year revenues for its Media Networks segments; it rose 8% to $8.76 billion. This increase in revenue was one of the few highlights of this earnings call, though, as Viacom reported an overall 69% drop in profits for the fourth quarter "due to weak advertising sales from its cable channels and declining filmed-entertainment revenues." If Rock Band 2 had managed to snag more of the market away from the fully entrenched Guitar Hero, things might've been a little better, but there's no doubt that Rock Band is a success. Maybe it can whittle a little more away from Guitar Hero's lead with the next entry.  Who doesn't want to see Rock Band 3?

Nobody is about to say that 2 million in sales is bad, but considering the explosion of the music genre in the industry, it's no surprise that Viacom was expecting more.

Related Game(s): Rock Band 2

2/12/2009 John Shepard

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