According to Wedbush Morgan Security’s analyst Michael Pachter, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is likely to sell about 7.5 million copies until the year’s end and then to decline a little bit because of Rock Band. Pachter thinks that the highly popular game franchise will generate no less than $550 million for this fiscal year.

"Because we expect to see increased competition from a Rock Band guitar-only bundle next year, we are reluctant to model significant growth from Activision's Guitar Hero franchise," said Michael Pachter. Rock Band had become Guitar Hero III’s rival even before being launched, but the recent complaints of hardware unresponsiveness seemed to have harmed Rock Band’s sales.

Developed by Harmonix, Rock Band will always remain the game that broke Guitar Hero’s market monopoly. Although it now seems to feature some technical issues, this game is likely to become more than a simple rival for Guitar Hero III in the next period and analysts took this fact into account when talking about Guitar Hero III’s commercial success.

But Activision seems well prepared for fighting against Harmonix’ Rock Band. The company announced just yesterday that it would release standalone wireless guitar controllers for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock starting with early 2008, in a move that would offer the game’s fans even more fun and satisfaction. Thanks to these gadgets players would have the chance to feel just like real guitar players and they are likely to enjoy the game even more than before.

Furthermore, Aspyr Media announced yesterday that the Mac version of the popular title went Gold and it was scheduled to start shipping to the stores’ shelves on December 10. Developed and published exclusively by Aspyr Media, the Macintosh version of the game was released in partnership with Activision in a move that would challenge even more people to unleash their inner-rock star.

Thus, Guitar Hero III becomes a real phenomenon. The phenomenon that charmed us all.