2 Million Song Downloads For Guitar Hero II

Officials from Activision have announced that the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II has seen 650,000 downloads of new song content from Xbox Live Marketplace in less than five months, accounting for more than two million individual songs. Each of the downloads contains three individual songs which can then be played in the game using its signature guitar shaped controller. Many of the initially released songs came from the original PlayStation 2 only version of the first Guitar Hero, but more recent downloads have been exclusive to the Xbox 360. This includes a new My Chemical Romance song pack, which includes original recordings from the band’s latest album “The Black Parade”, and has seen over 50,000 downloads in its first week. To date, Guitar Hero games have sold more than 5.5 million units worldwide, according to The NPD Group in the U.S., Chart-Track in the UK and Gfk in Germany. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is scheduled to launch in October on PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3. "Activision was the first third-party publisher to offer downloadable content via Xbox Live to consumers and as a result, we have tremendous insight into the types of content that consumers want," states Dusty Welch, head of publishing, RedOctane. "The Guitar Hero II downloadable video game song packs are some of the most popular content on Xbox Live and are quickly becoming a very lucrative revenue stream and powerful promotional vehicle for musicians and record labels today." “We have been working very closely with Activision to make our catalog available for download for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. The results we have seen from download sales to date have been very impressive. This partnership is providing EMI Music Publishing and its songwriters with a valuable new source of revenue, and at the same time giving us the opportunity to exploit portions of our catalog that might otherwise not get such high-profile exposure," remarked Rod Kotler, director of music services at EMI Music Publishing.