As a note on RB 3's alleged less than stellar sales: on the 360, from what I can tell, the game has remained pretty popular in digital sales. It's listed as second only in popularity to Skyrim (Halo Waypoint doesn't count) and more popular over all than COD: Black Ops. That seems to contradict what a lot of people seem to believe about the sales of RB 3.

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Originally Posted by Alternity

I've said 60% xbox, 30% PS3 and 10% wii in an earlier post in this thread, I was pretty close to your thinking, and I said at least the half, since I'm not entirely sure how much people are on each consoles.

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There's a bit of overlap, yes (I primarily play on PS3, but I also have the game for Xbox), so it's tough to say for certain. 10 percent Wii is definitely too high, though.

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Originally Posted by mikeyts

This TV ad does; it features people playing the Squier, Mustang and keyboard with cymbals on the drum kit and multiple microphones (all pro band). There are quotes from reviews praising the pro modes and the little voice-over at the end mentions them: "Rock Band 3, now with keyboards, real instrument game modes and support for over 2000 songs."

I posted a poll shortly after lauch asking whether people had seen that ad; most respondents hadn't and the largest group who had saw it non-primetime on a cable network.

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I've never saw this, I saw a youtube video before RB3 release at E3 of people playing BoRhap in it's entirely with keys and harmonies, and a short video of someone playing RitD on pro guitar at E3 too. I've never seen anything releated to RB on any QC TV channels, or the few US/english CAN channels that I have access to. Their advertising wasn't that big, it was propably restricted to some TV channels or something.

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Originally Posted by SheSaidSheSaid

There's a bit of overlap, yes (I primarily play on PS3, but I also have the game for Xbox), so it's tough to say for certain. 10 percent Wii is definitely too high, though.

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I was referring to the time I was playing on wii though, it was kinda active at that time. I have no idea if it's still active (aka being able to find random people at any hour).

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Originally Posted by Pitch-Black

As a note on RB 3's alleged less than stellar sales: on the 360, from what I can tell, the game has remained pretty popular in digital sales. It's listed as second only in popularity to Skyrim (Halo Waypoint doesn't count) and more popular over all than COD: Black Ops.

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It has been said that they're counting compatible DLC sales in that. The day after Blitz released it was showing up as the highest selling XBL Arcade game of all time :D.

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Originally Posted by Alternity

Their advertising wasn't that big, it was propably restricted to some TV channels or something.

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9%+ respondents to my poll reported seeing it in primetime on a major network. I don't think that it ran for more than a few months.

Someone brought up something about how the game now was made for the core crowd. It seems that most of that core crowd is the score-grind type. Most of the attrition was among the partiers and role-players. The role-player was always a minority, but now I seem to be the only remaining representative still highly active on these forums.

The score fiends are easy to please at this point - keep the DLC coming, preferably with more involved instrument parts. Witness the complaints in the DLC thread when something weak on instruments comes out. I hope that when the time for RB4 comes (maybe after another new IP, and hopefully before they even think about DC4), that they flesh out the game some. Maybe some of those score fiends will give it a chance and like it.

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Originally Posted by Alternity

I was referring to the time I was playing on wii though, it was kinda active at that time. I have no idea if it's still active (aka being able to find random people at any hour).

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There is no real way to gauge current player base. Not without access to LIVE/PSN/Wii online, anyway. The usual method to extrapolate the numbers is to pick a song everybody has and is likely to be highly popular and then count the number of top 1% scores, multiply them by 100 and then you end up with a rough estimate of the number of players in toto on a particular console.

It isn't perfect because it doesn't count people who don't play online, or didn't play a particular song, or whatever else might affect the numbers.

But in general, in spite of what a few die-hards would have you believe, the Xbox has about twice as many players as the PS3 which has about ten times the number of players on the Wii. To put it in context:

Xbox - 100
PS3 - 50
Wii - 5

Also, it should be noted that a commercial for a multi-platform title may emphasise a particular console, it does not actually confirm or deny any particular sales/player base advantage that might exist. It mainly confirms a higher likelihood that a console manufacturer paid a little bit of money to get the larger exposure. If left up to the game maker, they'd probably just list the manufactuers at the end in alphabetical order and equal sized logos and leave it at that.

Too many people read too much into little things like that.

According to Rockbandstats.com 171k people played BoRhap on guitar on PS3, 309k people played Low Rider on guitar on X360, and 55k people played I love rock 'n roll on guitar on Wii. Those are the most played song on the most played part. Take in consideration that alot of people don't even set up their internet connection on wii, and most people does on ps3 and x360.

Making the comparison with three different songs is not really an acceptable way to confirm or deny the premise.

Also, it's probably more accurate to use rockband.com's leaderboards rather than an outsider stats tracking site. One is just more likely to be up-to-date.

As I said, there is no way to find out the true numbers and must use the stats that are available. HMX has the most accurate collection of the numbers and they're not talking.


All this is off the beaten path of the OP. There was 'no marketing' for RB3 because the OP didn't notice any/enough. The argument that more advertisement would've increased the popularity of the game is flawed on so many levels because it simply ignores the reality of the market as a whole. RB3 is stable and HMX has been successful with their overall strategy over the last couple of years.

Remember: People saw the big legacy DLC sale as some kind of evidence that HMX or Rock Band was in some kind of trouble. Everybody sees things as they want to see them and they all have the truth that can fix what isn't broken. If only we'd all see it and agree.