The Beatles Rock Band Exceeding Expectations, says Viacom

On a recent Goldman Sachs conference call, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was asked about the performance of The Beatles Rock Band. The game has clearly benefited from a lot of mainstream hype, and it would appear that sales of the game have gotten off to a good start. 

“It's been terrific. The sales have exceeded our internal expectations. In the first week we've sold about 25% of our inventory, and we've had tremendous excitement around this game. The reviews have been incredible... It really is a work of art. The game delivers in all respects and we think it's going to have legs,” Dauman said. “It's [the kind of game] where the whole family can get involved. It's selling well across all platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii), and in fact the pricing change that was made on PlayStation has helped sales on that platform. And with The Beatles there's a lot of built-in promotion with the release of their music because they're releasing Abbey Road next month, Sgt. Pepper after that and so forth. So in addition to all the marketing we're putting behind it across our networks along with the promotion that comes from The Beatles re-releasing their songs, there's going to be promotion for the next several months, and as we go into the holidays it'll be great.” 

Interestingly, Dauman also noted that the special full band kit with Beatles instruments is selling quite well. In this economy, we would have guessed that sales of that SKU would suffer. “The special limited edition set that we have priced at $249, with the Ringo drums, is selling really fast, and it looks like we'll be selling out of that in November, so if any of you are interested in buying that you'd better hurry up,” he said, adding that The Beatles game is helping to give Rock Band more momentum as a franchise. He noted that there are now 60 million paid downloads to date on the Rock Band platform.

IndustryGamers reached out to EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich to get his interpretation of Dauman's comments. Just how much does that 25% equate to? 

“Mr. Dauman's statement regarding sales of The Beatles Rock Band is a little unclear. Without knowing the amount of inventory initially available, calculating initial sales and ship-in is a little tough,” he acknowledged. 

Divnich said his “retail checks put first week USA sales at 550,000 units, and an additional 100,000 from Europe, nearly doubling my original estimate.” He added, “However, this is not to suggest that Beatles Rock Band is doubling market expectations.”

He continued, “The buzz around The Beatles Rock Band is tremendous.  The Beatles Rock Band was even featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as well as getting plugs on various primetime television shows such as The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Very few games have ever been able to reach this type of exposure.

“I admit that I originally under-estimated the power of The Beatles brand as well as MTV Games' ability to reach the mainstream markets.  If those estimates hold true, it would put The Beatles Rock Band on the path to be MTV Games' biggest release to date.  With the success of The Beatles Rock Band, I would not be surprised if MTV Games begins to publish other titles outside of the Music and Rhythm genre.”