 Guitar Hero and Rock Band (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii), music game franchises which used specially designed controllers that mimicked musical instruments and allowed uses to play a large selection of licensed music, were extremely popular during the seventh generation, with over twenty different title releases across various platforms. Activision's Guitar Hero series sold more than 25 million units with over $ 2 billion in retail revenue, while Harmonix's Rock Band series has sold over 13 million copies; both series were augmented with a large volume of downloadable content. However, due to saturation of the market in 2009 along with the economic recess, both series have since ceased publishing, though Harmonix has stated they will bring back Rock Band to the eighth-generation when the time is right.
