RedOctane was seeking to bring in a Guitar Freaks-like game, highly popular in Japan at the time, into Western markets, and approached Harmonix about helping them to develop a music game involving a guitar controller. Guitar Hero was created from a partnership between RedOctane, then their own company that produced specialized video game controllers, and Harmonix, a music video game development company who had previously produced Frequency, Amplitude, and Karaoke Revolution. The new logo, which was introduced with Guitar Hero 5 and used up through Warriors of Rock, removes these sharp features so as to reflect the broader selection of music now included in the games. Following a lukewarm reception and sales, Activision laid off many of the game's developers and sold the studio to Ubisoft, later shutting down the game's streaming DLC service.
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Guitar Hero Live, released in October 2015, was the first new title in the series in five years, considered to be a reboot of the series and developed by FreeStyleGames, who had developed the DJ Hero games. Activision later shut down sales of the series' downloadable content, although users who purchased material from it previously may still play what they bought. Despite asserting consumer research suggested continued solid demand for the series, Activision later stated that the series was on hiatus for 2011, amid the development of a seventh main installment that was later cancelled as the emerging product was considered to be of poor quality. Activision also claimed that the third main title of the series, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, is the first single video game title to exceed $1 billion in sales.ĭespite early success, the series, along with the overall rhythm game genre, suffered from poor sales starting in 2009. Activision claimed in 2009 that the Guitar Hero franchise was the 3rd largest game franchise after the Mario and Madden NFL franchises.
The series has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, earning US$2 billion at retail. The first game in the series was considered by several journalists to be one of the most influential video games of the first decade of the 21st century. Such games have been utilized as a learning and development tool for medical purposes. The Guitar Hero franchise was a primary brand during the emergence of the popularity of rhythm games as a cultural phenomenon in North America. The series has twenty five releases, including the two spin-offs, the DJ Hero series and Band Hero. Additional companies, such as Budcat Creations and Vicarious Visions, have assisted in the adaptation of the games for other systems. Activision brought Neversoft (primarily known for their Tony Hawk series of skateboarding games) on board for future development duties. Harmonix was acquired by MTV Games and went on to create the Rock Band series of music games in the same vein as Guitar Hero. The series became extremely successful, leading to the acquisition of RedOctane by Activision in 2007. The first game in the series was made on a budget of $1 million. They enlisted Harmonix, who previously developed several music video games, for development assistance. In 2005, RedOctane, a company specializing in the manufacture of unique game controllers, was inspired to create Guitar Hero based on RedOctane's experience creating hardware for Konami's Guitar Freaks arcade game. Later titles in the series feature support for downloadable content in the form of new songs. The series initially used mostly cover versions of songs created by WaveGroup Sound, but most recent titles feature soundtracks that are fully master recordings, and in some cases, special re-recordings, of the songs. With the introduction of Guitar Hero World Tour in 2008, the game includes support for a four-player band including vocals and drums. Most games support single player modes, typically a Career mode to play through all the songs in the game, and both competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. The games attempt to mimic many features of playing a real guitar, including the use of fast-fingering hammer-ons and pull-offs and the use of the whammy bar to alter the pitch of notes. Players match notes that scroll on-screen to colored fret buttons on the controller, strumming the controller in time to the music in order to score points, and keep the virtual audience excited.
Guitar Hero is a series of music rhythm game video games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs.
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PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Arcade, Nintendo DS, Mobile phone, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox One, iOS