Harmonix has had multiple reverses of fortune in the past few years, having been bought by Viacom in 2007 at the height of music gaming interest, then sold again for a fire sale price in 2010. With interest in peripheral driven music games waning, Harmonix banked its future on the Kinect-exclusive Dance Central.
Fast forward a year to the launch of Dance Central 2, and they've managed to sell 2.5 million copies of the original game, making it the top third-party game on Kinect. 2011 will be Harmonix's most profitable year ever, with a projection of $100 million in revenue.
Also helping the company are continued sales of downloadable music, which have diversified with the launch of Dance Central and should see some licensing fees decrease with Rock Band due to the lack of competition with the now dormant Guitar Hero. “We’re going to continue to invest in the [downloadable content] business,” said Harmonix Chief Operating Officer Florian Hunziker to Bloomberg.
“They’ve retrenched and are quietly rebuilding a profitable business,” says Scott Steinberg, head of technology consulting firm TechSavvy Global. “It’s like bands. When you have a bad album, you step back a bit and you let the work speak for itself.”
