 Upon release , the first game was seen as an unexpected hit , earning over US $ 45 million with about 1 @.@ 5 million copies sold . Guitar Hero II was significantly more financially successful , with over 1 @.@ 3 million copies sold and sales over US $ 200 million . Guitar Hero III , according to Activision , was the first single video game to sell more than US $ 1 billion at retail , with nearly 3 @.@ 5 million copies sold during the first seven months of 2008 . World Tour continued the series ' high sales records with 3 @.@ 4 million units sold in the United States during 2008 . More than 60 million downloadable tracks have been purchased across the series as of February 2010 . Both Guitar Hero III and World Tour were listed on a March 2011 list from the <unk> Group of top grossing games in <unk> sales in the United States since 1995 ; Guitar Hero III tops the list with total sales of $ 830 @.@ 9 million . 
