Now I haven’t played much of the music game genres and can’t completely place my finger on why they’re so popular other than the recent US trend in the last decade to convince every little boy and girl that they want to be a rockstar. I’m not sure how I feel about that aspect of it (whatever happened to sex, drugs and rock n roll?), but I have to say the Rockband games have an amazing track record for breaking barriers for console games:

• First music game to have downloadable content (this is huge! – used to be entirely PC only options)
• One of the first cross-console games to offer full compatibility and interoperability between competing peripherals (leading to this whole new era of controllers that look like their objects)
• One of the first games to be involved in releasing new albums from artists (Judas Priest and Motley Crue)

PC Games still have the towering income from online multiplayer games, but console is definately rising. You may also want to check out this article about the rise in video game revenue in the US, it was a $19 billion market in 2007 and continues to rise,  so start  buyin’ those games and boost the economy!