Rock Band: I Am a Golden God!

Quite a franchise, that Rock Band. According to new stats from the NPD Group, the music videogame has surpassed $1 billion in North American retail sales, making it the No. 1 title of 2008 by revenue across all game genres. It has also sold some 40 million paid songs via download.

Not bad for a product that’s been around just 15 months. And, remember, these are pre-Beatles: Rock Band sales. When Viacom’s MTV Games ships that title on 9/9/09 (Get it? “Number nine, number nine, number nine.”), the franchise will be well on its way toward the $2 billion barrier, though it make take quite a bit longer to reach it. The public’s appetite for music games like Rock Band and rival Guitar Hero is said to be cooling, with sales expected to be flat in 2009. “[These games are] certainly losing steam,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson told the Los Angeles Times recently. “This year will establish the direction that this genre will go. Maybe it continues to take off. Maybe it tops out at 15 percent of the software market. Or it could just turn out to be a fad. I think the latter two scenarios are most likely.”