Guitar Hero III Surpasses $1B in Sales

While it’s no secret that Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise has seen some pretty stiff competition from MTV’s Rock Band series, that doesn’t mean the game’s still not a heavy hitter for Activision. During a speech at CES in Las Vegas on Friday, Activision’s CEO Mike Griffith said that, over the holiday shopping season, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock became the first game in history to ever hit more than $1 billion in sales. According to sales data, the Guitar Hero franchise as a whole passed the $1B mark in January of last year, just 26 months after the series had first launched.

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Activision Buys FreeStyle Games

Activision Publishing announced this morning that it has acquired UK-based FreeStyleGames. The Lemington Spa-based team previously worked on the music dance game B-Boy. Freestyle Games will become an internal team supporting localized downloadable content for the Guitar Hero franchise. Activision did not disclose how much this acquisition costs the company, but did say that FreeStyleGames executive team have signed long-term employment contracts with the company.

Metallica’s Death Magnetic Hits Guitar Hero

Metallica’s Death Magnetic album is available today for Guitar Hero III as a download via Xbox Live Marketplace for 1440 Microsoft Points. Available in all regions, the album offers 2 exclusive versions of “Suicide & Redemption”, including - “That Was Just Your Life”, “The End Of The Line”, “Broken, Beat & Scarred”, “The Day That Never Comes”, “All Nightmare Long”, “Cyanide”, “The Unforgiven III”, “The Judas Kiss”, “Suicide & Redemption J.H.”, “Suicide & Redemption K.H.”, and “My Apocalypse”. This downloadable content is playable in both Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero World Tour.

Get if you’d like, but I haven’t been a fan of this band since they cut their hair and started suing fans for web sites…

Source: Major Nelson

Guitar Hero III Gets Interscope Track Trio

Three artists from the Interscope Records label will soon take center stage in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The three-song Interscope Track Pack will be released on August 7. The pack will include Flyleaf’s “Tina,” “Carcinogen Crush” from AFI, as well as a remix of Marilyn Manson’s “Putting Holes In Happiness” by Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The Interscope Track Pack, originally offered to purchasers of the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock soundtrack CD, will be available on August 7 on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and PLAYSTATION Store.

Guitar Hero III Virtuoso Track Pack Details

Three legendary guitar artists debut later this month in Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock. The Guitar Virtuoso Track Pack features three fresh master tracks set to storm living rooms across the globe on July 24. The pack includes Joe Satriani’s 1987 hit, Surfing with the Alien, Steve Vai’s For the Love of God, and Buckethead’s Soothsayer. The Guitar Virtuoso Track Pack will be available July 24 on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and the PLAYSTATION Store.

Learn more about the pack by visiting community.guitarhero.com.

Play With Guitar Hero ‘Action Figures’

Just in case you managed to rescue whatever shred of dignity you had with your friends and relatives after seeing you play with Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken, Todd McFarlane’s McFarlane Toys are determined to squash it by making you purchase their Guitar Hero action figures.

And that’s just it. You can call them action figures all you like, but remember that’s just a clever marketing spin. You, my friend, are, ipso facto, playing with dolls.

So about the four characters that will get their likeness modeled in the form of “action figures,” they are as follows:

Lars Umlaut, the makeup-wearing fattie

Axel Steel, the denim-clad thrasher

Johnny Napalm, the punker with a mohawk

The God of Rock, who looks like Zeus with a six-string

More info on the “action figures” can be found here.

WoW Song Makes It Into Guitar Hero III

If this is Activision and Blizzard’s idea of “synergy,” then, maybe they should let someone other than 12-year-olds high on Gummy Bears carve out their business strategy.

That said, a World of Warcraft-themed song will be distributed as a free downloadable on Guitar Hero III, starting as of today. The tune is titled I AM Murloc, and it’s some sort of Heavy Metal abomination, which kicks off with a Murloc gurgling sound.

Enough said I think.

But seriously, all my smart-alecky verbal jabs aside, this is rather cute, especially considering that I AM Murloc is written and performed by Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain, a band formed by Blizzard executives and talent, including president Mike Morhaime on bass and art director Samwise Didier on vocals. (I win the long sentence contest today.)