Main titles

The original Guitar Hero was released on the PlayStation 2 in November 2005. Guitar Hero is notable because it comes packaged with a controller peripheral modeled after a black Gibson SG guitar. Rather than a typical gamepad, this guitar controller is the primary input for the game. Playing the game with the guitar controller simulates playing an actual guitar, except it uses five colored "fret buttons" and a "strum bar" instead of fretsand strings. The development of Guitar Hero was inspired by Konami's GuitarFreaks video game, which at the time, had not seen much exposure in the North American market; RedOctane, already selling guitar-shaped controllers for imported copies of GuitarFreaks, approached Harmonix about creating a game to use an entirely new Guitar controller. The concept was to have the gameplay of Amplitude with the visuals of Karaoke Revolution, both of which had been developed by Harmonix. The game was met with critical acclaim and received numerous awards for its innovative guitar peripheral and its soundtrack, which comprised 47 playable rock songs (most of which were cover versions of popular songs from artists and bands from the 1960s through modern rock). Guitar Hero has sold nearly 1.5 million copies to date.

Both RedOctane and Harmonix experienced changes in 2006. RedOctane was bought by Activision in June—who spent US$100 million to acquire the Guitar Hero franchise—while it was announced in October that Harmonix would be purchased by MTV Networks. As a result of the two purchases, Harmonix would no longer develop future games in the Guitar Hero series. Instead, that responsibility would go toNeversoft, a subsidiary of Activision known for developing the Tony Hawk's series of skateboarding games. Neversoft was chosen to helm theGuitar Hero series after Neversoft founder, Joel Jewett, admitted to the RedOctane founders, Kai and Charles Huang, that his development team for Tony Hawk's Project 8 went to work on weekends just to play Guitar Hero. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick believed that Neversoft would help them bring great games to the series, but on reflection, state that had Activision explored Harmonix further as a continued developer for the series, things "may have turned out differently". In addition, Activision began seeking other markets for the game; a Nintendo DSversion of the series was developed by Vicarious Visions, while a Guitar Hero Mobile series was created for mobile phones. The company also began considering the expansion of the series to band-specific titles with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Later, in November 2008, Activision acquiredBudcat Creations, another development studio that had helped with the PlayStation 2 versions of Guitar Hero III and World Tour, announcing that they will be helping to develop another game in the Guitar Hero series.

History

Guitar Hero was created from a partnership between RedOctane, then their own company that produced specialized gaming controllers, andHarmonix Music Systems, a music video game development company who had previously produced Frequency, Amplitude and Karaoke Revolution. RedOctane was seeking to bring in a GuitarFreaks-like game, highly popular at the time in Japan, into the Western markets, and approached Harmonix about helping them to develop a music game around a guitar controller. Both companies agreed to it, and went on to produce Guitar Hero in 2005. The title was highly successful, leading to the development of its successful sequel Guitar Hero II in 2006. While initial controllers for the first Guitar Hero game were designed and built by the Honeybee Corporation of China, subsequent iterations and future controllers were developed inhouse at RedOctane, with development led primarily by Jack McCauley.

The series currently has seven major releases and four expansions on gaming consoles. There are spin-offs for Windows and Macintoshsystems, mobile phones, the Nintendo DS, and an arcade game. The Guitar Hero franchise was a primary brand during the emergence of the popularity of rhythm games as a cultural phenomenon in North America. Such games have been utilized as a learning and development tool for medical purposes. 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. The series has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, earning US$2 billion at retail, claimed by Activision to be the 3rd largest game franchise after the Mario and Madden NFL franchises; the third main title of the series, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is also claimed by Activision to be the first single video game title to exceed $1 billion in sales. Despite early success, the series, along with the overall rhythm game genre, suffered from poor sales starting in 2009, and in early February 2011, Activision disbanded further development of the series, though later clarified that the series is on hiatus for 2011.

With the introduction of Guitar Hero World Tour in 2008, the game includes support for a four-player band including vocals and drums. The series initially used mostly cover version of songs created by WaveGroup Sound, but most recent titles feature soundtracks that are fullymaster recordings, and in some cases, special re-recordings, of the songs. Later titles in the series feature support for downloadable contentin the form of new songs.

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 GuitarFreaks arcade game. They enlisted Harmonix Music Systems, who previously developed several music video games, for development assistance. The first game in the series was made on a budget of $1 million. The series became extremely successful, leading to the acquisition of RedOctane by Activision in 2007. 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. Activision brought Neversoft (primarily known for their Tony Hawk series of skateboarding games) on board for future development duties. Additional companies, such as Vicarious Visions, Budcat Creations, Machineworks Northwest, and Aspyr Media have assisted in the adaptation of the games for other systems.

Guitar Hero

The Guitar Hero series (sometimes referred to as the Hero series) is a series of music video games first published in 2005 by RedOctaneand Harmonix Music Systems, and distributed by Activision, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing lead,bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous rock music songs. 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. 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 barto alter the pitch of notes. 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.