November 7, 2007 2:36 PM PST

Activision: 'Guitar Hero III' nets $115 in first week's sales. Just kidding.

I got a hilarious e-mail this morning from video game giant Activision touting the tremendous sales of the latest iteration of its hit franchise, Guitar Hero.

The subject line of the e-mail began, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock earns $115 in first week."

After I got through blinking a few times to make sure I was reading it right--I was--I looked into the body of the e-mail and saw that, yes, the company had left out a rather meaningful word: "million."

'Guitar Hero III' netted opening week sales of $115 million, the biggest first week in Activision's history.

(Credit: Activision)

So, no, Guitar Hero III didn't sell two copies in its first week. It actually did rather spectacularly, netting the highest opening-week sales for any game in Activision's history, with a total of $115 million in revenues.

That's not bad, though it does pale slightly in comparison to the opening day sales of $170 million for Halo 3, a statistic that Microsoft touted as the single-biggest opening day in entertainment history.

Whatever. It's pretty clear that Guitar Hero III did pretty well, and kudos to Activision, RedOctane--the Activision-owned studio that published the game--and Neversoft, the developers, for that.

I interviewed Dusty Welch, RedOctane's head of publishing today, and the Q&A will be posted within a few days. Please stay tuned for some interesting reading about Welch's thoughts on Guitar Hero's heritage, its future, its place in the market, and lots more.

Recent posts from Geek Gestalt
Robots serve up fiery cocktails in San Francisco
Atari gets delisted by Nasdaq
Facebook reported ready to lift 5,000-friends cap
Weblin can make any Web site social
RealNetworks plans to spin off its games unit
Add a Comment (Log in or register) 1 comment (Page 1 of 1)
interesting indeed
by rdupuy11 November 7, 2007 7:14 PM PST
$115 million in a week, means that Guitar Hero III actually sold more than the entire real music industry did in the same week. OK....actually I'm kidding, $115 million for that week, whereas its estimated the music industry can still sell 10 billion in Cd's in a year, that would work out to 192 million per week, on average.
Reply to this comment
Powered by Jive Software
advertisement
  • About Geek Gestalt

  • At the tech culture nexus of video games, fire art, Legos, 3D virtual worlds, social networking, aviation, hacked Roombas and much more, CNET News.com's Daniel Terdiman sits with pen, notebook, laptop and camera, chronicling the latest and greatest for your reading and viewing pleasure. Stop by regularly for a look at the "fun beat" brought to you by a reporter uniquely positioned to take you into the middle of another side of technology.

Add this feed to your online news reader
Google
Yahoo
MSN

Daniel @ Twitter

Latest blog posts from News.com

Featured blogs

Beyond Binary by Ina Fried A look at how technology is changing our lives and at the people behind all that life-changing stuff.

Coop's Corner by Charles Cooper Charles Cooper weighs in on Silicon Valley hijinks, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Defense in Depth by Robert Vamosi Covering the latest in computer viruses and computer crime.

Green Tech Fresh green tech news and commentary.

One More Thing by Tom Krazit Tom Krazit takes on the tech phenomenon that is Apple, and keeps a close watch on the chip industry.

Outside the Lines by Dan Farber When business and technology meet, that's when things get interesting.

The Iconoclast by Declan McCullagh Exploring the intersection of politics and technology.

The Social by Caroline McCarthy Exploring all facets of social media and tech culture.

Underexposed by Stephen Shankland Coverage of digital photography, science, and open-source software.

advertisement
On MP3.com: Worst MP3 Players of 2007
Advanced
search
Advanced
search
Visit other CNET Networks sites: