Guitar Hero Riffs To $1bn US Sales January 22, 2008

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Who would have thought a few years back that a game based on the dubious male practice of 'air-guitar' could have become a $1bn-selling phenomenon?

Activision has announced that the game has chocked up $1bn in sales in the 26 months it’s been on the market. And that’s just for the US, so you can probably double that for the rest of the world.

Data from the NPD Group says that 14 million units have sold in the US. Activision went on to claim that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was the top title in units and dollars for calendar year 2007, making it the No. 1 best-selling video game of all time in a single calendar year.

"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."

Having played a lot of air guitar in my time, the popularity of Guitar Hero doesn’t seem all that strange in retrospect.-Martin Lynch

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