Analyst says Guitar Hero and Rock Band Should Join Forces

October 25th, 2010 at 2:53 pm -

Music game sales have been winding down for a while now, and the recent releases of DJ Hero 2 and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock have done little to reignite the passion for the ailing genre. And while the details for Rock Band 3 haven’t been released yet, analyst Doug Creutz has a suggestion for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band: team up!

After saying that he expected the two recently released Hero titles to struggle to sell 1 million copies combined in Q4, Cruetz went on to say ”Activision’s best option at this point would be to approach Viacom with [the] idea of (re)merging the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises through a sale or joint venture agreement.”

A fine plan on paper, except for a few things. First of all, the two games are published by rival companies, whose animosity for each other is well recorded. Secondly, the falling out between Red Octane and Harmonix is something that has likely never been fully resolved, and makes the two companies getting in bed together again an unlikely prospect. And finally, have we forgotten who is holding the reigns over at Activision?

That’s to say nothing about the fact that competition breeds innovation. While it may be true that this planet is only big enough for one plastic rock ensemble, don’t expect Rock Hero anytime soon.