Rock Band Tops $1 Billion

The Rock Band franchise has topped $1 billion dollars in retail sales in North America in the last 15 months, say MTV, Harmonix and Electronic Arts. Over the same time period, players have bought 40 million Rock Band songs from the game's digital catalog of over 600 songs by 269 artists. According to NPD data, Rock Band is the top game of 2008 in terms of revenue, and both the original game and Rock Band 2 have together earned more than 50 awards, the companies say, boasting an average Metacritic score of 92. In particular, the companies are highlighting Rock Band's role as trailblazer for digitally-distributed content as well as its relationship with the music industry -- it's apparently the first music game to release a song (Mötley Crüe’s "Saints of Los Angeles") on the same day as its radio release.