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Guitar Hero Targets New Market

Ever since the release of the first Guitar Hero game back in 2005, they have been a huge hit. Up until now Guitar Hero have released 10 different games, the first ones being based more on guitars. More recently, with Rock Band coming onto the market, Activision has had to include new instruments to keep up with Harmonix, creators of Rock Band.

However, with 3 games in the tube, Guitar Hero are aiming for a market away from guitars while trying to take some market away from Rock Band.

Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero and DJ Hero are the 3 new Guitar Hero games that are due for release towards the end of 2009. Guitar Hero 5 is the first game and it’s a pretty standard game, it features the whole range of instruments, as well as an 85 strong song list. A new guitar controller is being released with this game, no doubt this controller will prove to be successful over the older model.

Band Hero is the next one up, this is more of a family based game, although it’s sort of the same as Guitar Hero 5. This is just one way which Activision are trying to win over the family gaming market.

The final game on the list is DJ Hero. Activision know it as much as we do, this is something brand new for the market, and Activision want as much from it as they can. This game will feature a whole new controller, the DJ deck which features 3 buttons and 2 sliders. Because the game is for an entirely new target market, it’s difficult to tell whether the game will be successful. However, if DJ Hero is successful, I wonder whether we will be seeing a new range of Guitar Hero games being released? Obviously Guitar Hero wouldn’t be the name. Plus, will Rock Band jump onto the band wagon if it does become popular and come out with their own range of games.

There are a large number of gaming markets that none of the music game companies have been targeting. One would be piano players. No doubt a Piano Hero game would be popular because you would get both modern piano players, as well as more classical players who prefer to play grand pianos.

Another market that they haven’t targeted would be the classical Guitar Hero. Classical guitars are hugely popular and by bringing out a video game like Classical Guitar Hero, you would almost be entering a new market because the age of the player would be different to the age of a standard Guitar Hero player.

Those 2 ideas for games were just a few that I have had, no doubt they won’t be created, but I’m hopeful for atleast one of them. It all relies on whether or not DJ Hero proves to be a big success for Activision. Another problem would be whether or not Activision think a game like Classical Guitar Hero would make any money at all.

Every one of these factors would affect the game production, but hopefully we will see some of these games being released in the future.