It seems like folly at this point to have ever considered Guitar Hero something less than the mega-franchise it has become. Lest we forget, it was scarcely three years ago that the first Guitar Hero game came out and consistently sold out, month after month, and that game was comprised mostly of covers! Now, Guitar Hero games seemingly sell themselves and they've even had a material effect on the music industry as a whole.

Enter Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, a game centered around a group of aging but well known rockers. Despite the fact that the game offered little different compared to the gameplay features in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and has perhaps the narrowest selection of songs in the series' history, the game is a hit, just like its predecessors. Its success will probably set a precedent for a whole new set of Guitar Hero games, opening up another rich field for Activision to farm. We examine the title's success.

Train kept a rollin' all night long!
According to the NPD, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith occupied the sixteenth and seventeenth slots for the month of June. The game was also in the top 10 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii and was the second best selling title on PS2. For July, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith occupied the thirteenth and nineteenth overall slots and was again in the top 10 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii and was the second best selling title on PS2 for the month. Since releasing on June 26, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith has sold 951,000 copies in the U.S (and we're about to receive NPD data for August, which we would guess would easily put that figure north of one million).

To put the sales in perspective, Aerosmith's last studio album, 2004's "Honkin' on Bobo" sold 160,500 copies in its first week, equating to roughly $2 million in sales. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith sold 567,000 copies in its first week, grossing roughly $25 million.

"We didn't have to think about it very much," said Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford to Rolling Stone. "We were all pretty aware of how popular the game was, and being the first band to have our own version of it seemed pretty exciting. We're the first band of many."

"Pretty soon this is going to be the way you sell music," commented Allen Kovac, CEO of Motley Crue's management firm Tenth Street Entertainment.

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