'The Beatles: Rock Band' Beats 'Guitar Hero 5' In September Sales

As album sales soften and the industry turns to alternate ways to get music to fans, the battle between the big music video games has become increasingly heated, and new sales figures indicate The Beatles: Rock Band has a bit of an edge on Guitar Hero 5. According to Billboard, The Beatles: Rock Band sold 595,000 copies following its September 9th release, while GH5 moved 499,000 units since it hit stores on September 1st. In all, both games help fuel a revenue increase of 72 percent for music video games compared to September 2008.

Guitar Hero 5 kept pace with the opening month sales of its predecessor Guitar Hero: World Tour, which sold 534,000 copies last year, Billboard reports. However, the Beatles helped push MTV Games to new highs, as TB:RB more than doubled the 238,000 units of Rock Band 2 that were purchased in its first month. The Beatles: Rock Band, which was only outsold by Halo 3 and Madden ‘10 last month, came in second in overall revenue due to its higher price tag and all the add-on replica instruments that were available either separately or as a deluxe package.

The Beatles: Rock Band is set to get a bump starting today when the remaining tracks from Abbey Road become available for download.

Thanks for the report to RollingStone.com.

Comments

[AEnima18]

Hmm I'm slightly surprised, seeing as younger people tend to buy these games. I'm glad that The Beatles are still as popular as ever though.

[acade365]

wow! this is SO relevant!

[zeatle]

The Beatles are the best band and its good to see them get the credit they deserve all these years later.

[Max l'Alcolo]

acade365 wrote:

wow! this is SO relevant!

Well **** it shows that The Beatles are still popular, even among yougsters.

[ernasty10050]

This isn't surprising. The Beatles are very famous and their Rock Band game was well done, whereas Guitar Hero 5 hardly has any memorable or fun songs.

[sheppo]

all i can say is i hope this guitar hero craze inspires kids to learn the real thing and that there is so much more enjoyment to learning a song properly than clicking some coloured buttons

[floomdesk]

wow, the people are showing taste.
I'm not saying that it's good they bought with a plastic guitar-controller in which they pretend to be able to play guitar... it's good they chose good music over shit music

[grimms]

what ultimate news this is. Hmm yes. =/

[Beerad1337]

grimms wrote:

what ultimate news this is. Hmm yes. =/

It wasn't supposed to be 'ultimate news'. Just music news. Yes, this is music related. It's just like if it was an article about a band you didn't like - just don't bother reading it.

[MasterExploder0]

Despite GH5 having Megadeth on it as well as a bunch of other great songs I still bought The Beatles. I love the dreamscapes

[FKK]

sheppo wrote:

all i can say is i hope this guitar hero craze inspires kids to learn the real thing and that there is so much more enjoyment to learning a song properly than clicking some coloured buttons

I picked up a real guitar after playing guitar hero. And i know other people who has done the same

[-000]

I figured. On TV, there were like a million Beatles Rock Band ads and only a few Guitar Hero ones.

[DualReaver]

Haha. Good.

[edinfang]

Guitar hero 5 had a crap playlist-Coldplay no dreamtheater

[nick9790]

Not that I have anything against the Beatles...but how??? I can't imagine songs on rock band would be that thrilling to play by them....it would be like rocking out to Johnny Cash, great music, but not exactly exciting

[Limelight08]

nick9790 :
Not that I have anything against the Beatles...but how??? I can't imagine songs on rock band would be that thrilling to play by them....it would be like rocking out to Johnny Cash, great music, but not exactly exciting

Rock Band: The Beatles isn't really meant to be hard and challenging, but just to have a fun gaming experience with one of the greatest bands of all time.

[TreMejia]

I'm glad because the Guitar Hero series has just been horrible lately. Guitar Hero 3 was the last good one, the newer ones are an extreme disappointment and Rock Band has a much better, more fun playability.

[TheBigProjekt]

I honestly never liked the beatles, and probably won't either...

But GH5 did suck. Bad.

[Kynarethband]

Guitar hero and rock band are terrible, makes everyone lazy and not play real instruments and its just another way for the videogame companies to make millions of dollars!

[ndschroede23]

Kynarethband wrote:

Guitar hero and rock band are terrible, makes everyone lazy and not play real instruments and its just another way for the videogame companies to make millions of dollars!

Why is it so bad that they want to sell things to people that want them?

sheppo wrote:

all i can say is i hope this guitar hero craze inspires kids to learn the real thing and that there is so much more enjoyment to learning a song properly than clicking some coloured buttons

And all guitar involves is plucking some strings. See, I can make things sound really easy by ridiculously simplifying them too.

[timebomb616]

Rock Band > Guitar Hero
For the non-fail DLC.

and music games HAVE inspired a lot of kids to start playing actual music; I'm in high school right now, and tons of people are learning to play guitar, because they want to be as good as being able to play things like Dream Theater, and that ilk of harder songs in RB & GH

[LoathsomePete]

zeatle wrote:

The Beatles are the best band and its good to see them get the credit they deserve all these years later.

I know you're probably being facetious but, wuuuuut?

[iwannabesedated]

I get this is sort of music news...

[gljbass]

I really like the Guitar hero series. I don't have GH5 because it's ridiculously expensive. But Rock Band: the Beatles is great fun! I enjoy playing it, but only with friends. I have 2 friends that have it. But since they have it and I only really like playing it with friends, it makes it pointless for me to buy it.
And as for GH putting dead characters in their games, that's a little disrespectful. I can understand them playing their own songs, but portray them as they were and don't make them play songs that would make them turn over in their grave.

[Scourge441]

Checked.

[jrcsgtpeppers]

As album sales soften and the industry turns to alternate ways to get music to fans, the battle between the big music video games has become increasingly heated

Album sales are lower because CD's are $a6 an album. Which is very expensive. I love CD's, but they are too expensive. ALl the money I have goes towards them.
But since when was this a battle?

Limelight08 wrote:

nick9790 :
Not that I have anything against the Beatles...but how??? I can't imagine songs on rock band would be that thrilling to play by them....it would be like rocking out to Johnny Cash, great music, but not exactly exciting

Rock Band: The Beatles isn't really meant to be hard and challenging, but just to have a fun gaming experience with one of the greatest bands of all time.

It may just be me but how lame does that sound? If you want to experience the band play it on a musical instrument. Guitar video games may be fun, but they are only games meant to be beaten as challenges. Kids don't play them because they want to be a musician they play them because they are video games. And I know beatles songs aren't hard on rock band. They are on guitar, which is more of a challenge, it's the laziness of the kids that prevents them from learning anything.

[jrcsgtpeppers]

sigh I meant $16. Unreasonable. If bands were better more people who go to their shows which is what brings in the real money.

[24Hammett24]

Possibly because Guitar Hero 5 has some of the shittiest songs on it.

[Kaerthon]

I LOVE how this news post had everything they said, except the part at the end where they said that the total sales for rockband were the COMBINED numbers from every version of the game, while Guitar Hero 5 came out in only two versions. THEN Rockband/MTV and whatever company originally made this statistic refused to give out the individual numbers.

[adamshakermaker]

Is this ultimateXbox.com?

[Skuzzmo]

Kind of fitting don't you think

Guitar hero - Overated
Beatles - Overated

The ultimate pairing...

[Idiot_Son]

guitar hero 5 was sold out, beatles rock band wasn't moving off the shelves. somehow i doubt this is true.

[Idiot_Son]

gljbass wrote:

I really like the Guitar hero series. I don't have GH5 because it's ridiculously expensive. But Rock Band: the Beatles is great fun! I enjoy playing it, but only with friends. I have 2 friends that have it. But since they have it and I only really like playing it with friends, it makes it pointless for me to buy it.
And as for GH putting dead characters in their games, that's a little disrespectful. I can understand them playing their own songs, but portray them as they were and don't make them play songs that would make them turn over in their grave.

considering that only 2 of the beatles are alive, rock band has done the same thing. dumbass.

[BobChicken]

how the **** is halo 3 still selling huge amounts each month

[Rhubarm]

Awesome

['93]

while i prefer rockband over guitar hero (much less of the whole YEAH YOU CAN NOW PLAY GUITAR that guitar hero has) i still dont really like these games

i mean someone was actually asking me how long i took to learn how to play all of slts (cante remember how long...just said a month to see what he was getting at) and hes like 'well with guitar hero 5 i learnt it in a day'

what i cant believe is that hes actually in my band

[Matt-92]

Skuzzmo wrote:

Kind of fitting don't you think

Guitar hero - Overated
Beatles - Overated

Are you going to back up your statement that The BEatles are overrated or not? It's estimated about a billion Beatles albums have been sold worldwide. You don't see that many being overrated do you?

The ultimate pairing...