Pribek

Eliot Van Buskirk says Guitar Hero Is a Gateway Drug.

With about 14 million units sold in its first two years in North America, Guitar Hero has caught on a lot faster than the Velvet Underground did. 73 percent of Listening Post readers think it is having an effect on our culture.

If even a tiny percentage of these living room rockers exchange their plastic controllers for the real deal, the guitar itself could be set for a major revival after years of losing traction to the turntable and the laptop. Guitar Hero could provide legions of budding guitarists with the incentive to graduate to the real thing.

I think he’s got a point there. A while back I wrote a post, “We Are The Seekers Of Tone”, over at Ovidiu’s place. In it, I showed some statistics including this information.

There were 1,501,000 new, electric guitars sold in 2006, in th U.S.

Of those;
256,354 were under $100
561,537 were $101-$200
195,317 were $201-$350

By my math, that’s 1,009,208 new, electric guitars that are in a price range that fit beginning or intemediate level players. Every one of those guitars needs an amp. That’s not including the acoustic guitar numbers or, used guitars (I just checked-71,506 items listed under guitar on eBay, at this moment). Then you got all the accessories; stomp boxes, straps, cases, strings, on and on; guitar players love to accessorize and new players are particularly subject to the lure of gizmos.

The music business may be in a rough place but the guitar business is booming. How much of it is due to games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band is unknown but, I bet the big retailers and manufacturers have a pretty good idea and, I bet they’re doing high fives every time a new version is released.