Tapping on fake instruments and screeching into microphones connected to video game consoles has become lucrative for both the music and gaming industries. Downloadable tunes for the music-based games Guitar Hero, Rock Band and SingStar have become as vital as iTunes itself. While regular versions of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and SingStar come loaded with songs by bands like The Rolling Stones and Radiohead, the most recent incarnations of these games allow players to go online and download additional tracks, costing anywhere from 99 cents up to $2.50 per song, depending on the game.

The downloading doesn’t stop there. Because the songs for these games can’t be burned onto a CD or uploaded to an MP3 player, many players turn to other digital download services for their own copies. All that musical consumption equals big bucks for the flailing music industry. Song downloads for MTV Games and Harmonix’s Rock Band recently passed the 12 million mark.

The next evolution of the genre could reshape not just the music industry but music as a whole. Guitar Hero World Tour, the recently announced fourth iteration of the franchise that started this trend, will feature a Rock Band-like assemblage of peripheral instruments and the ability to compose digital music from scratch.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle