The smash hit games Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been selling like crazy. Setting all kinds of records for sales in the video game niche, but it seems that is starting to expand.

While other company’s offering downloadable songs still struggle to get people to buy their music rather than download for free (illegally), Guitar Hero and Rock Band seem to have no trouble getting people to drop money on new songs for the games.

Ranging from $.99 to $1.99 a song, sales have been in the millions. To date, it is reported that Rock Band has sold in excess of 2.5 million songs via its downloadable service, while the big boy, Guitar Hero, has sold more than 5 million songs.

Lets think about the math here.

5,000,000 X $1.50 (avg) =  $7,500,000

Those are some crazy numbers for adding a couple songs every week. And the limits for this are endless.

Not only are songs for the games flying off the shelf, but the sales are spreading to the music industry. After the Metallica song pack release it was reported that downloads for the 3 songs released were up by almost 40%!

On top of that as I watch music videos of songs that were featured in the games on youtube, I am seeing comments like “Hey I saw this on Guitar Hero”. I find it truly amazing the effect these games are having on the industry.

Check out the article here.