I woke up today knowing I was off from work so after playing some Orange Box I started looking at last weeks USA sales chart. I saw Guitar Hero was still selling strong and I've always noticed that, even with big launches like Gears of War the Guitar Hero games sold strong and solid. Thats why I dedicate this thread to the Guitar Hero sales comparison as I have compared all the numbers of Guitar Hero I and II on Playstation 2 and II on Xbox 360 for the first 50 weeks.

Lets start with the launches of all three versions:

Guitar Hero (PS2)
Launch: 15,778
Release: Week of November 12, 2005

As you can see the first Guitar Hero pretty much flunked in its first week. The game launched just before the holidays so Activision was probably expecting strong sales. The game debuted with nearly 16,000 units which is pretty bad considering the installed base and everything. Though it was its first of its kind as a music/rythem game so it could be that people were not sure what to expect from the game. The week after that the game sold another 15,000 copies and in its third week it sold more than in its first week. After that sales remained reasonably strong to around 15,000 to 20,000 a week until Week 53 when Guitar Hero II launched. Guitar Hero almost reached 900,000 in the US in about 53 weeks, which is meh.


Guitar Hero II (PS2)
Launch: 224,252
Release: Week of November 11, 2006

The second game in the popular franchise did a lot better than the first one. The game debuted with almost a quarter million in its first week, reaching 1,000,000 in only 6 weeks. As you can see the game launched at almost the exact same time of year as the first one, and launched in the same week as big hitter Gears of War.  Sales remained strong troughout the holiday season reaching 1,400,000 in sales until January. After that sales remained very strong with a place in the Top 20 every single week up to last week October 13, 2007 since launch!  Sales reached an avarge of 65,000 units in 50 weeks, compared to 18,000 from Guitar Hero I. Up to last week, Guitar Hero II reached lifetime sales of 3,250,000 in only 49 weeks.

Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360)
Launch: 326,808
Release: Week of April 7, 2007

Almost half a year after Guitar Hero II launched on Playstation 2 the game launched on Xbox 360 with lots of new songs and a different Guitar. The game had a massive debut and did better than the Playstation 2 version in its launch week. The game sold 326,000 units in its first week, which is very strong considering the Xbox 360 installed base was only 5,900,000 when the game launched. After that however, sales dropped rappidly with only 90,000 in its second week and only 20,000 in its third week. After that however, sales remained strong to about 30,000-40,000 a week. Lately, the game is selling about 20,000 a week, reaching lifetime sales of almost 1,300,000 in 28 weeks.  Also the Xbox 360 version remained a long time in the Top 20 in the US, but dropped off sooner than the PS2 version. The Xbox 360 version sold an average 46,000 units in only 28 weeks.

Offcourse, no sales comparison is right without some nice graphs, so below you can see the graphs of the weekly sales of all three versions, plus a graph of lifetime sales.



I see it won't fit entirely on the page so here are the colors:
Green = Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360)
Red = Guitar Hero II (PS2)
Blue = Guitar Hero I (PS2)

As you can see the PS2 version did the best but the Xbox 360 version did pretty well considering. It will be interesting to see how Guitar Hero III, which launches in 6 days, will sell on all platforms. The game will even be launched on PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 so it will probably sell a lot better than Guitar Hero II did. What do you think of the Guitar Hero II sales, and what are your projections on Guitar Hero III?

(P.S. Don't mind my spelling, I don't have a spelling checker here so)

I think Wii will have the most sales of GHIII (not an exploding launch but very strong legs). PS2 & Xbox360 will fare excellently as well. I can't see this game selling that good on PS3 though, something like sports games on Wii or JRPGs on Xbox360.

i still don't see the point for those 5 M (who already bought Gh and GHII) to buy GHIII. If it's going to be bigger sales-wise, that means they have to find 5 new million persons to buy it? can someone explain it to me please? i don't get the 100$ for a few new songs (or maybe you can buy it w/o the guitar?)

Xbox360 and PS2 owners can use their old guitars :)

Why do you think Wii's GHIII will sell best?!

I'll buy the Wii-version!!!... But lets face it...

PS2 userbase: 40 mil in America.

X360 userbase: 7.6 mil in America.

Wii userbase: 5.9 mil in America.

So It'll be X360 and PS2 on top with Wii coming in 2nd with sales of ~150k-200k first week.

I really don't understand why people are expecting this game to sell MASSIVE on Wii... I really don't!

The Wii-version will have strong legs though, and will be a millionseller Ww by Feb-March 08. But nothing that will shock people like 'OMG WHY IS THIS GAME SELLIN MILLIONS ON WII?!'... It just ain't gonna happen... It just hasn't got the userbase, YET!

Yeah, you just pay $50 or so...which isn't so bad...heck, they paid $50 for GH: Rock the 80s...and that wasn't very good.

You people are crazy if you think the Wii version will sell the most. You clearly don't know how many GH fans there are on the PS2...as well as existing 360 owners.

Also, Rock Band is going to steal a tiny bit of thunder, and I'd guess GH mania is a little slower now as well...I'm not expecting a huge rush to buy new guitars plus the game from the Wii and PS3 audience...just a fair amount.

...You can always use your old GH1/2 guitar, and just snag a copy of GH3 w/o guitar.

In many, many, many people's case, there are so many people that only get to play GH1/2 at a friends house, and many many people out there want GH, but due to the insane price, aren't able to addopt. Only 5% of the PS2 userbase has a copy of GH1/2.

Trust me, Guitar Hero US = Brain Age Japan. Only difference is GH is 3x the price, but revenue wise, they're the same. If GH was...oh....$40 USD, it probably would of hit 10m in the US alone.

I hope to pick up GH3 and an extra guitar at some point. I have about 10 kids at my church asking me to buy it so they can play it.

Guitar Hero sells incredibly in Europe as well. And, as I have already said, the Wii version won't have a terrific launch. It will have the best legs of the other systems though, and that's the most important thing in these kinds of games.

ok, thanks for the clarification.