Origins and popularity in Japan (1980s–2000) Human Entertainment's
Dance Aerobics was an early rhythm-based video game released in 1987, and allows players to create music by stepping on
Nintendo's
Power Pad peripheral for the
NES video game console. The 1996 title
PaRappa the Rapper has been credited as the first true rhythm game, and as one of the first music-based games in general. It requires players to press buttons in the order that they appear on the screen, In 1997,
Konami released the DJ-themed rhythm game
Beatmania in Japanese
arcades. Its
arcade cabinet features buttons similar to those of a musical keyboard, and a rubber pad that emulates a vinyl record.
Beatmania was a surprise hit, inspiring Konami's Games and Music Division to change its name to
Bemani in honor of the game, Its successes include
GuitarFreaks, which features a guitar-shaped controller, and 1998's ''
Pop'n Music, a game similar to Beatmania
in which multiple colorful buttons must be pressed. While the GuitarFreaks
franchise continues to receive new arcade releases in Japan, it was never strongly marketed outside of the country. The game was highly successful both in and outside Japan, unlike games such as GuitarFreaks
, DrumMania
and Beatmania'', though the latter had some success in Europe. Released the same year,
Enix's
Bust a Groove features a similar focus on dancing but employs a more conventional input method. The game contains competitive one-on-one battles, and grants the player more freedom than typical rhythm games.
NanaOn-Sha, the creators of
PaRappa the Rapper, released
Vib-Ribbon in 1999. It eschews instrument-shaped controllers; instead, players maneuver the protagonist through an obstacle course by pressing buttons at correct times. The game's levels are generated by the background music, which players may change by inserting
audio CDs. While it was praised for its unique style and artistry,
Vib-Ribbons simple
vector graphics proved difficult to market, and the game was never released in North America. Sega's
Samba de Amigo, released in arcades in 1999 and on the
Dreamcast in 2000, features maraca-shaped, motion-sensitive controllers. The game allows for two-player gameplay, provides a spectacle for onlookers and allows players to socialise while gaming. In 2000,
Taiko no Tatsujin combined traditional Japanese drums with contemporary pop music, and became highly successful in Japanese arcades. The game was later released on consoles in the West as
Taiko Drum Master, and the franchise continues to receive new installments in Japan, In 2001, the company released
Frequency, which puts the player in control of multiple instrument tracks.
Ryan Davis of
GameSpot wrote that the game provides a greater sense of creative freedom than earlier rhythm titles.
Frequency was critically acclaimed; however, marketing was made difficult by the game's abstract style, which removed the player's ability to perform for onlookers. The company later released a more socially driven,
karaoke-themed music game in
Karaoke Revolution (2003). '' players Also in 2005, Harmonix and the small publisher
RedOctane released
Guitar Hero, a game inspired by Bemani's
GuitarFreaks. However, instead of the Japanese pop that comprises the earlier title's soundtrack,
Guitar Hero features Western rock music. The game reinvigorated the rhythm genre, which had stagnated because of a flood of
Dance Dance Revolution sequels and imitations.
Guitar Hero spawned several sequels, and the franchise overall earned more than $1 billion, with the third installment ranking as the best selling game in North America in 2007. Harmonix followed
Guitar Hero with the
Rock Band franchise, which also earned over $1 billion.
Rock Band titles support multiple instrument controllers and cooperative multiplayer, allowing players to play as a full band. The
Guitar Hero franchise followed suit with the band-oriented,
Neversoft-developed
Guitar Hero World Tour.
Guitar Hero installments based on specific bands, such as
Metallica and
Aerosmith, were also published. Additional songs for
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band were made available for purchase via the Internet, which generated further revenue. In 2008, it was reported that music games had become the second most popular video game genre (behind action) in the United States, with 53% of players being female. Video game industry analysts considered 2009 to be a critical year for rhythm games, and they believed that it would allow them to gauge the future success of the genre. Both the
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band franchises were expanded, and they received entries for handheld gaming devices and mobile phones. Specialized titles that targeted specific genres and demographics, such as
Band Hero for pop music and
Lego Rock Band for younger players, were released. Sales of music games were down in the first half of the year. This decline was attributed to fewer purchases of instrument controllers; it was assumed that players had already bought such controllers and were reusing them. While analysts had expected that United States sales of
Guitar Hero 5 and
The Beatles: Rock Band would be high—close to or exceeding one million units each in the first month of their release—sales only reached roughly half of those projections. The failure to meet sales projections was partly attributed to the impact of the
late-2000s recession on the video game industry; Harmonix's CEO
Alex Rigopulos considered that at the time, both
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band were the most expensive video games on the market. Analysts also considered it to be a sign of market saturation. Further contributing to the decline was genre stagnation; the franchises retained the same basic gameplay over several iterations, giving consumers less incentive to buy additional titles. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos felt that the aggressive competition between the
Rock Band and
Guitar Hero brands on the belief that the market could only support one franchise also contributed to the decline of these games. As a result, analysts lowered their expectations for future music games; for example, projections of first quarter U.S. sales of
DJ Hero, a
Guitar Hero "spin-off", were reduced from 1.6 million units to only 600,000. Sales of rhythm games, which totalled $1.47 billion in 2008, reached only $700 million in 2009. Analysts predicted that the market would settle at the same "healthy" $500–600 million level of the
Call of Duty series. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter concluded that the saturation of the rhythm game market accounted for one-third of the industry's 12% sales decline in 2009. The fallout of the weakening rhythm game market affected game developers, publishers and distributors. Companies in the latter two categories believed that most consumers would own at least one set of instrument controllers by 2010, which would increase the importance of software and downloadable content sales. Activision scaled back its 2010
Guitar Hero release schedule to just two games, reducing the number of
SKUs from 25 in 2009 to 10 in 2010. The company closed several in-house developers, including RedOctane, Neversoft's
Guitar Hero division, and
Underground Development.
Viacom, which had paid Harmonix $150 million following the success of
Rock Band in 2007, began seeking a "substantial" refund on that investment after weak sales in 2009. Viacom also sought to negotiate new deals with music publishers to reduce the costs of the
Rock Band series' licensed music. Ultimately, the company began to seek a buyer for Harmonix during the third quarter of 2010. In 2010, rhythm game developers included new features in their products. For example,
Rock Band 3 and
Power Gig: Rise of the SixString support guitar controllers with strings, and both contain modes that teach players accurate fingering. Despite this new content, sales of music games faltered in 2010.
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and
DJ Hero 2 sold only 86,000 and 59,000 copies, respectively, in North America during their first week on the market. This was in sharp contrast to
Guitar Hero III, which had sold nearly 1.4 million units in its first week in 2008. Through October 2010, music games achieved net sales of around $200 million, one-fifth of the genre's revenue during the same period in 2008. Analysts believed that the market likely would not break $400 million in revenue by the end of the year. End year sales were less than $300 million. By the end of 2010, the instrument controller-based rhythm market was considered "well past its prime", and developers shifted their focus to downloadable content and potential integration with motion control systems. In late 2010, Viacom sold Harmonix to an investment-backed group and allowed it to continue developing
Rock Band and
Dance Central. Citing the downturn in rhythm games, Activision shuttered their
Guitar Hero division in February 2011. Analysts suggested that the market for peripheral-based rhythm games may remain stagnant for three to five years, after which sales could resurge because of digital distribution models or the release of new video game consoles. However, by 2013, the era of peripheral-based music games was considered at an end, as Harmonix announced that it would cease regular updates of
Rock Band downloadable content on April 2, 2013, as the company shifts to newer games.
Rhythm games for young girls (2004–present) In Japanese amusement arcade, arcade-based
collectible card games became popular. In 2004,
Sega released
Oshare Majo: Love and Berry which was a fashion coordinate game with collectible card game and rhythm game elements. and then other game companies also entered in this game genre. •
Sega –
Oshare Majo: Love and Berry (2004–2008) and
LilPri (2009–2011) •
Taito – (2006–2007) •
Atlus –
Kirarin Revolution: Happy Idol Life (2006–2009) and
Gokujō!! Mecha Mote Iinchō: KuruMote Girls Contest! (2009–2011) •
Tomy – (2006–2010),
Pretty Rhythm (2010–2014),
PriPara (2014–2017),
Idol Time PriPara (2017–2018),
Kiratto Pri Chan (2018–2021),
Waccha PriMagi! (2021–2024), and
Himitsu no AiPri (2024–) •
Bandai –
Pretty Cure: Data Carddass series (2007–2017) and
Aikatsu! (2012–) •
Konami –
Otocadoll (2015–2022) Those games have only aimed at young girls, however some of those games also hit at some adults which are often mentioned as "
Ōkina otomodachi" (). In 2016, as for PriPara, Tomy mentioned that "When all users [of the game] are counted as its main target of from 6 to 9 years old [Japanese] girls, we succeed to expand the market scale as many as every one of the main target." in its financial results.
Virtual idol rhythm games (2008–present) Virtual idol rhythm games grew in popularity in Japan out of two different media segments. One was
The Idolmaster series of games developed by
Bandai Namco Entertainment first released as an arcade game in 2005. Initial games had players taking the role of a manager of rising stars (idols) managing their schedules through
mini-games, which include performing in auditions similar to a rhythm game approach. The other direction came from the introduction of the virtual idol of
Hatsune Miku by
Crypton Future Media for its line of
Vocaloid sound synthesis software in 2007. Using Vocaloid, software users could have Miku mimic singing and dancing to the music created in Vocaloid, and many of these videos became popular on the Japanese media sharing site
Niconico. The popularity of the Miku's videos led to other similar videos based on other popular characters including those out of the
Idolmaster series. The next
Idolmaster game,
The Idolmaster Live For You! in 2008, focused more on the performance mini-games, which led for most remaining games of the series to be virtual idol rhythm games. Similarly, as Crypton continue to expand on Miku and other virtual idols for Vocaloid, they expanded to licensing those idols for video games, collaborating with
Sega to create the
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA debuting in 2009. These games were initially mostly for consoles, but
mobile game versions of these series appeared in 2012 (
Miku Flick for the Miku series) and 2013 (
The Idolmaster Shiny Festa), and numerous mobile-based virtual idol rhythm games followed, such as
Love Live!,
BanG Dream!,
Uta no Prince-sama and
Ensemble Stars!. Many of these games were freemium games based on existing anime or manga properties, and typically included
gacha-type mechanisms to be profitable.
Future directions (2010–present) With the introduction of motion controllers for the Xbox 360 (
Kinect) and the PlayStation 3 (
PlayStation Move) in 2010 and 2011, some analysts stated that the rhythm market would resurge thanks to dance- and band-based games that use platform-agnostic controllers. Dance games such as Ubisoft's
Just Dance, Harmonix's
Dance Central and
Michael Jackson: The Experience were based on new motion sensing technologies. Industry pundits believed that, because sales of peripheral-based music games are lagging and the popularity of pop music is surging, dance-based games would continue to thrive.
Just Dance and
Dance Central boosted the rhythm genre's late-2010 sales; the latter was the top-selling game for the Kinect in North America in November 2010. Both games helped the genre increase its sales by 38% over November 2009, according to NPD. Harmonix is expected to post more than $100 million in profit for 2011 buoyed by sales of
Dance Central and downloadable content for the game, according to
Bloomberg. The
first Just Dance game (2009) overcame a poor critical reception to topple
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's best-seller status, while
Just Dance 2 (2010) became the best selling non-Nintendo game for the Wii. The
Just Dance series competed with top action franchises for sales.
Tap Tap Revenge, the first installment of the
iPhone rhythm series
Tap Tap, was the platform's most downloaded game in 2008. The
Tap Tap franchise ultimately generated 15 million downloads and received a
Guinness World Record as the "most popular iPhone game series". Over the course of 2014, the phenomenon of
indie games produced several variations of the genre. The game
Jungle Rumble uses a mechanic where players drum on a touch screen to control the game. Different rhythms correspond with different verbs to control entities in an RTS like environment. The game
Crypt of the NecroDancer uses a mechanic where the player controls the main character in sync with the soundtrack's beat. Harmonix returned to its core rhythm games in 2014. In 2014, it successfully funded a
Kickstarter campaign to produce a remake of the PS2 title,
Amplitude for PlayStation 3 and 4, with release expected in 2015. Further, in March 2015, the company announced
Rock Band 4 to be released later in the same year, with plans to keep the game as a platform with continued free and paid updates and downloadable content, while refocusing on the core social and music enjoyment of the game. Activision also announced
Guitar Hero Live, slated for late 2015, which rebuilds the game from the ground up, keeping the core mechanics but using a 3-button with dual position controller, and using recorded footage of a rock concert taken from the lead guitarist's perspective to increase immersion. Guitar rhythm game industry is going for the
VR market with games like
Rocksmith and
Rock Band VR. 2016 saw the release of
Thumper, a self-styled "rhythm violence" game combining rhythm mechanics with an abstract horror theme and an original industrial soundtrack. Unusually,
Thumper features a player character encountering notes as physical obstacles, rather than having notes simply scroll offscreen. Also in 2016, Konami returned to the western arcade market with
Dance Dance Revolution A after a successful location test. In 2017, Step Revolution released
StepManiaX, a game similar to DDR and
In the Groove, with an additional center panel. The game currently releases monthly updates. In 2018,
Beat Saber, a virtual reality rhythm game designed around cutting colored cubes in time with a song's beat, became the top selling and highest rated virtual reality game on the Steam market at the time of its release. In 2019, the rhythm genre made its first foray into the
first-person shooter genre with Harmonix's AUDICA. This same formula would then be used again for 2019's
Pistol Whip, 2020's
BPM: Bullets Per Minute and 2022's
Metal: Hellsinger. Harmonix was acquired by
Epic Games in 2021, and worked on a new rhythm-based game mode called
Fortnite Festival, mimicking the gameplay of
Rock Band, released within Epic's
Fortnite game platform in 2023. Beside the traditional note-matching gameplay for one to four players,
Fortnite Festival features Jam tracks which, similar to Harmonix'
Dropmix and
Fuser, allows players to mix multitrack tracks from different songs to make their own mashups. Songs are offered for free on a rotating basis, while players can also purchase songs to play at any time through the
Fortnite store or as part of the game's battle passes. Though the game initially shipped with only support for normal game controllers or keyboard, later additions brough in support for existing guitar controllers from both
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band, and new guitar controllers produced by PDP and CRKD. Based on the success of
Fortnite Festival along with community support for
Clone Hero and
YARG, former members of RedOctane established
RedOctane Games under
Embracer Group in mid-2025 to create
Stage Tour, a new guitar-controller-based rhythm game. == Health and education ==